Markers On The Road To The Green Energy Wall -- Electric Trucks Edition

March 10, 2025/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

In a post in December 2021, I first asked which state or country would be the first to hit the “Renewable Energy Wall” — described as “a situation where the electricity system stops functioning, or the price goes through the roof,” or some other aspects of impossibility become so unavoidable that the zero carbon fantasy must be abandoned. In subsequent posts I have explored various ways that the Wall was starting to manifest — for example, cancellation of offshore wind energy developments, and abandonment of large investments in producing so-called “green hydrogen.”

Although the coming of the Wall has been obvious to intelligent observers for a long time, the green energy fantasists had set their statutory and regulatory mandates sufficiently far into the future that there was no immediate reckoning. But now, five and more years on, that is starting to change. The first of the impossible mandates are suddenly looming. The arrival of President Trump on the scene has also been a huge negative for the green energy crowd. But for today I’ll focus on a subject that has much more to do with reality than with any action of the President. That subject is fully electrified heavy duty trucks.

Here in New York, our State and City governments have gone nuts adopting one after another green energy mandate that is impossible and will never happen. The majority of them came with the State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) and the City’s Local Law 97, both adopted in 2019. For the most part, the impossible mandates only begin to kick in in 2030. So, no Wall there yet.

But in 2021 Governor Hochul sought to do the CLCPA one better by adopting a regulation called the Advanced Clean Truck Rule. This Rule requires a certain percentage of heavy duty trucks sold in New York to be “zero emissions,” i.e., all-electric. It so happens that New York copied this Rule and its percentages from California. For the 2025 model year, now under way, the relevant percentage is 7%.

All-electric heavy duty trucks? Did anyone think this one through? Clearly not. The New York Post today reports that two upstate legislators of the Democratic Party have now introduced legislation to postpone the electric heavy-duty truck mandate until 2027. The legislators are Jeremy Coney Cooney of Rochester and Donna Lupardo of Binghamton. The two call the mandate “nearly impossible for the trucking industry to comply with.” Here is one among several noted problems:

The legislators noted that an average diesel truck can be refilled in about 10 minutes and can drive for about 2,000 miles. By comparison, an electric, zero-emission heavy-duty truck takes approximately 10 hours to charge and can run for about 500 miles. . . . “Battery charging times are . . . a challenge and will remain so until new technology emerges and is commercialized,” [Lupardo] said.

Does anybody really think that this battery charging issue is going to be solved within a couple of years? People have only been working on batteries that are suitable for this purpose for about 100 years or so. Other issues noted by the legislators include “lack of charging infrastructure” and “cost.” On the cost front, it the Post reports that the price of a fully-electric heavy-duty truck can be as much as triple that of a diesel competitor with comparable load capacity. Exit quote from these legislators:

“As we transition to a clean energy future, there is no point in putting an entire industry at risk in the process.”

Needless to say, all of the New York environmental groups are lined up on the other side. From the Post:

[E]nviromental groups opposing the proposed rule delay include the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Environmental Advocates of NY, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund,  New Yorkers for Clean Power, Sierra Club, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Union of Concerned Scientists.

Here is their perspective on the matter:

“Delaying implementation is not only a foolish response to a false crisis whipped up by manufacturers, who are looking to rig the market in their favor, but it will lead to more ER visits, people suffering from asthma, and increased health costs, particularly for communities of color and low-income,” said a memo co-signed by the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “Our organizations urge the governor and the legislature to stand up for vulnerable communities and reject this legislation, and any effort like it.”

The enviros seem to think they can get their way by claiming to speak for “vulnerable communities.” As far as I’ve ever been able to determine, greenhouse gas emissions have almost nothing to do with rates of asthma or other health issues. I live right here in the middle of Manhattan, with hundreds of diesel trucks passing by each day, and we don’t have noticeably worse health than people anywhere else. Meanwhile, don’t “vulnerable” communities, or at least low-income ones, have an interest in not having the cost of delivering their groceries and other goods increased by a multiple by an all-electric truck requirement?

So far, here at the consumer level, the impact of the electric truck mandate has not been noticeable. The mandate only applies to manufacturers’ sales, not to the actual fleets of the truck operators. The manufacturers seem to have figured out some workaround for themselves that is working at least for the moment. (Maybe they are making a few electric trucks that may or may not work and selling them to themselves or friends for a dollar.). But that won’t help for long. The 7% goes to 10% next year, 15% in 2027, 20% in 2028, 25% in 2029, and on up from there.

California apparently has tried to apply its percentage mandates to the fleets of the truck operators, rather than just to the sales of the manufacturers. That has been nixed by the incoming Trump administration.

There are ten states (including California) that have adopted the California rules on fully-electric heavy-duty trucks. As far as I can determine, New York is the first one showing signs of blinking. Without the miraculous arrival of some new technology within the next year or two, there is no way that this can go on much longer. The likelihood of the miraculous new technology is about zero.

The initiative of Assembly members Cooney and Lupardo is unlikely to succeed this year. Next year, or maybe the year after, it will likely be a different story.

Suddenly Energy Realism Is A Winning Political Issue

October 23, 2024 by Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

For well over two decades, the linked causes of climate alarmism and energy transition have provided their adherents with a powerful upper hand in American politics. For that matter, supporters of those causes have had just as strong, if not a stronger upper hand in the politics of all the countries with advanced economies, whether in the EU, or Canada, Australia, and others. Here in the U.S., for all this time, almost no politician — even those claiming to advocate generally for smaller government or less regulation — has been willing to push back directly against assertions of “climate crisis,” or against demands for reducing “carbon emissions” or for achieving a “net zero” energy economy via government coercion and massive subsidies. Most Republicans seeking office have been cowed into deflecting and deferring on these issues, if indeed they have not openly gone along with the left’s energy program.

I have long said that this situation can’t last. The reason is that the proposed energy transition is infeasible and can’t possibly work; and the effort to achieve the impossible via government mandates and subsidies would inevitably drive up costs and otherwise impact voters directly in ways they would see. At some point the voters would react. But when would that occur?

You may not have noticed, but in the current election, push-back against insane energy transition policies has suddenly become a winning political issue. For the first time, Republicans are explicitly using the now patent consequences of the energy transition as a key strategy to win close races, including the presidency.

Consider the issue of electric vehicle mandates. There is no question about where Kamala Harris stands on this issue right now as a matter of official government action in which she has been personally involved. The Biden-Harris administration worked on developing a form of mandates for EVs from the day those two took office, as part of the administration’s “all of government” approach to, supposedly, controlling climate change through regulations. Two major rules were initiated on the subject, and gradually crept their way through the regulatory labyrinth. After years of process, the two rules became final on, respectively, April 18 and June 7, 2024. This is not ancient history, but rather something that occurred just over four months ago, and was big news at the time. The two Rules are in effect right now. There is no pretending this does not exist, or that it is part of some long-ago talking points of prior Harris campaigns that she has since moved on from. I covered these two rules in a post on June 8 titled “The Latest On The Federal War Against Internal Combustion Vehicles.”

For those not following this closely, let’s have a review of the bidding. The April 18 Rule came from EPA, with the title “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles.” It is 373 pages long in the three-column single-spaced format of the Federal Register. The gist is to progressively tighten the permissible emissions from internal combustion cars such that only fewer and fewer and smaller and smaller cars can meet them. The June 7 Rule came from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and sets fuel economy standards for combustion vehicles. Its title is “Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for Model Years 2027 and Beyond and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Pickup Trucks and Vans for Model Years 2030 and Beyond.” This one, often known as the “CAFE” standards, is 1004 pages in standard double-spaced typing.

Although the Rules are couched in terms of emissions and fuel economy standards, it is obvious on their face that the standards are set in a way that most internal combustion engine cars cannot meet them, thus forcing a transition to mostly EVs by the early 2030s. My June 8 post cited a March 25 analysis from Atlas EV Hub, which concluded that the EPA Rule alone could force EVs to be as much as 69% of new vehicle sales by 2032:

The regulation is set to bring significant changes to the auto industry, potentially putting the United States on the glide path to full electrification. . . . Under this final rule, battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric light-duty vehicles could make up 32 percent of all new vehicle sales in model year 2027, increasing to 69 percent by model year 2032.

Some time in late September or early October, the Trump campaign, sensing political advantage, began running an ad in Michigan explicitly stating that Harris is seeking to ban gasoline-powered cars. Video of the ad can be seen at this link. Here are the first few sentences of text:

Auto workers. Kamala Harris wants to end all gas powered cars. Crazy but true. Harris's push requiring electric only is failing big and Michigan auto workers are paying the price. Massive layoffs already started. You could be next. President Trump's committed to protecting America's auto workers.

On October 4, reported by the New York Post here, Harris responded at a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, with a statement saying:

“Michigan, let us be clear: Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”

Of course Harris did not give anyone a chance to press her on the issue, or to ask her to explain how the two new Rules do not constitute an attempt to tell people “what kind of car they can drive.”

Meanwhile, over in the Senate, on July 31 Ted Cruz proposed a resolution rescinding the EPA and NHTSA Rules, which Cruz correctly characterizes as “the Biden-Harris gas car ban.” The resolution ultimately came to a vote in both the House and Senate, forcing Democratic Senate candidates in close races to take a position and defend it. One of those was Michigan Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin, currently in the House. Here is her statement defending her vote to uphold the Rules. Excerpt:

“In March, the EPA announced new emissions standards that had been drafted in close consultation with Michigan’s auto industry and Michigan’s auto workers. After responding to legitimate concerns from our auto manufacturers, the administration developed standards that were tough and aggressive, but also achievable — and earned the support of the auto industry and the UAW.”

The statement goes on and on from there in carefully calculated dissembling. It’s fun to watch her squirm.

A very similar dynamic has been unfolding in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey is now pretending that he has been a big supporter of fracking all along.

We are in the early days of this. Harris, Slotkin, Casey, et al., may still very well win their races. But however things come out this year, I predict that two and four years from now the needle will have swung further in the direction of energy sanity. Sooner or later, support for expensive and unworkable energy will become politically toxic. It can’t happen soon enough.

Industrial Policy: The Triumph of Hope over Experience

October 5, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Industrial policy is when politicians and bureaucrats use various combinations of tax, spending, and regulatory policies to steer the economy.

 

In other words, they are putting their thumbs on the scale to pick winners and losers.

It means replacing the “invisible hand” of the market with the “grabbing hand” of politics.

I’m motivated to write on this issue today because of a very strange column by David Brooks in the New York Times.

He basically acknowledges that industrial policy has a track record of failure, but he somehow hopes that things will be different in the future.

A new bipartisan we-need-to-rebuild-manufacturing mantra is taking hold. …Joe Biden has…been an industrial policy president. He’s tried to use hundreds of billions of dollars to help America build things — through big infrastructure projects and in factories. …

The government chooses key sectors that will spur economic growth… The government supports those sectors with direct subsidies, tax credits, trade protections and other measures. …Will it contribute to social cohesion and an American economic renaissance, or just become a sinkhole of debt-funded spending that will drag us to stagnation? …

I have no philosophic objections to aggressive government efforts to reshape the American economy. …But I wasn’t born yesterday. Industrial policy has been around for a while, and it’s often been a miserable failure. …

If I were an economist I might be wary, given industrial policy’s mostly unsuccessful record. But I’m a journalist… So, at the end of the day, I agree with those who say the question is not whether we do industrial policy, but how.

Well, looks let at two recent examples of “how” Washington does it.

The Wall Street Journal has a new editorial about the Biden-Harris initiative to subsidize and promote broadband access. At the risk of understatement, it’s been a disaster.

…consider the “internet for all” plan that President Biden tapped Kamala Harris to lead. Fiasco is the word for it. The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. …

Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals. …

Commerce hoped to spread the cash to small rural cooperatives, but the main beneficiaries will be large providers that can better manage the regulatory burden. Bigger businesses always win from bigger government. …The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” …

The broadband non-rollout is a classic of modern progressive government. Authorize money for a cause that private industry could do better, but then botch the execution with identity politics and union favoritism.

And here are some excerpts from an Autoweek report back in May about the Biden-Harris plan to subsidize the use of electric cars.

The Biden Administration’s $7.5 billion effort to jump-start the electric-vehicle charging landscape is moving very, very slowly. Now more than two years after the program was signed into law in late 2021, only eight chargers have been put in place. …

Americans remain worried about range anxiety and finding a place to charge, and the federal funding hasn’t yet been a big factor in changing that—or reversing the current slump in EV sales. …

Alexander Laska, deputy director for transportation and innovation in the Climate and Energy Program at the Third Way think tank, puts a positive spin on the pace of charger installation, attributing it in part to complicated regulations on the federal and state level. The money, Laska says, “comes with dozens of rules and requirements around everything from reliability to interoperability, to where stations can be located, to what certifications the workers installing the chargers need to have.”

Wow. If that’s the “positive spin,” no wonder the proponents of intervention are doing such a bad job.

But, to be fair, at least eight new chargers now exist, which is better than the number (zero!) of new broadband customers that are being served.

In neither case, though, is there even the slightest scent of success. Washington is squandering tens of billions of dollars in exchange for almost nothing.

Not that we should be surprised. Industrial policy has a track record of failure in the United States, dating all the way back to the 1800s. In more recent years, it’s also been a failure in Japan and China.

Mr. Brooks of the New York Times says he’s a journalist rather than an economist, but that’s no excuse for not understanding history.

News and Views

By Rich Kozlovich

I've not posted much about the two debates because the national consensus is clear.  Both Trump and Vance won, hands down,  even with the help of a corrupt, antagonistic, and lying media promoting a leftist agenda, both Kamala and Walz looked like dimwits.

Ford has lost billions on their ridiculous electric vehicles agenda, and so what do they do? Double down on stupid.  It's mind boggling. The same people who are working to destroy the world's energy production, are the same people telling us to convert to electric vehicles. How in the world did that stupid gene become so ubiquitous? Answer, it was always been there, but mostly dormant, all that was needed to fan that ember of stupidity into flame was a thoroughly corrupted system of education. And it's here, and maybe ... just maybe....  it's a good time to look at eliminating tenure in academia.

• My 

But it gets better all the time.   It turns out if the world is going to embrace AI and quantum computing, and it is, then and in order to do that the energy needs are going to be ....MASSIVE....!  Far beyond what we're producing now, and so far beyond what all these idiotic "alternative" environmentally destructive energy schemes are capable of producing.  

These expensive alternative energy programs are at best unreliable, and so unreliable that traditional power plants have to be built and maintained and running on stand by in order to supply power when these stupid green sources fail to work, such as when the sun stops shining in the winter and the wind stops blowing in the summer. In order to have ‘alternative’ energy we have to pay for energy we aren’t using in order to pay for energy we don’t need. How stupid can we get?

Solution?  Traditional energy production ramped way up, and nuclear.  And guess who's all on board with that.  Mister (globalism is beautiful, all leftism is good and pure, reduce the world's population, eat bugs to save the world from global warming himself) Bill Gates.  Remarkable! 

FEMA is a DEI disaster, the left loves hurricane Helene, and while the people in these states are suffering terribly, the left loves it because conditions are so bad all these Republican strongholds may not:

 

"be able to cast their ballots".  Due to... "FEMA's arrogance and interference....... reportedly one director in North Carolina who was denying aid was beaten by locals frustrated by his conduct. In some other communities, local sheriffs threatened to arrest FEMA workers if they hindered rescue and aid work."  ...........FEMA blew out its budget to pay for illegals, now it's using its remaining resources to block aid from private citizens October 3, 2024 by Monica Showalter They're from the government and they're here to help themselves........  Axelrod gloats that North Carolina's Hurricane Helene victims in pro-Trump areas may be unable to vote.

 

Given their incompetence, and their corruption, and massive waste of America tax dollars I think we need to ask if it's time to abolish FEMA?

 

Biden wants to give millions to Lebanon, and billions to Ukraine, which is being stolen hand over fist, and then says he's out of money to give to Americans "who remain stranded, homeless, powerless, and without access to necessities like food and water.".........."Are American lives not as important to the Democrats as the lives of illegal aliens? Apparently not, in the eyes of the Democrats. Make no mistake about it, siege and starvation are tools of warfare. And the Democrats are, by calculation, waging war against the dying citizens of western North Carolina."......

But the real fault for this hurricane is global warming, right?  Well, since the world stopped warming over 25 years ago, it isn't global warming any longer, it's climate change, which encompasses everything and anything.  And we know it's true because the media says so. Or then again.....is it possible they're lying?  

However, I now think we all should give CNN a round of applause.   In spite of all their lies and corruption, (if lies and corruption defined being a predator, they'd be an apex predator)  they've apparently decided it would be financially better for them to have less viewers than they do now, which has been steadily shrinking.  So, they've now decided you will have to pay a monthly fee of $3.99 to watch them spout their lies.  What could possibly go wrong?  I wonder if anyone there remembers just how successful their pay for view CNN+ streaming service worked for them?  For those who don't know, it failed.

Let's try and get this right.  Anthropogenic Global Warming is one of the greatest scientific frauds ever perpetrated on humanity, and if the media embraces it, you know it's a lie. This link will take you to my global warming commentaries.

Helene was a monster storm destroying homes, power infrastructure, bridges, destroying whole towns, killing over 200 people with untold numbers still missing, through out Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.  The estimated cost? Over three hundred billion dollars.  But not to worry, America is going to provide $157 Million in humanitarian aid to people affected by  the crisis in Lebanon.   And who are these people in Lebanon?  

(Remember the people displaced there are Hezb'allah who started the war, not the Christians, Druze, and Sunni Moslems whose communities Israel did not target and who remain safely in place.)

As for those Americans devastated by Helene, Kamala  says:

“… the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like.  And you can apply now.”  

Wow, a whole $750 bucks from the Obama/Biden/Kamala/Walz/Mayorkas cabal, while Dolly Parton is personally donating a million dollars for hurricane Helene relief efforts.  Why's FEMA out of money?  Because they lavished their funds on illegal migrants.  The agency Mayorkas claimed two months ago was totally prepared for such and event.  

Who really is Kamala's base?  Let's try this: Those who are mentally disturbed, amoral, immoral, dependent on government in some way, along with those who are ignorant and stupid. What could possibly go wrong?  A lot!  If there was any doubt America's military leadership has been corrupted by Obama resulting in a military that's incapable of defending the nation, we now have over 200 retired Generals and Admirals endorsing Trump and address why they feel that's necessary. 

Talking more about doubling down on stupid, there's always, Liz Chaney, who the Democrats now love, along with her father, the man they vilified as a real life Darth Vader for decades, and now believe these two misfits are going to rally a massive number of Republicans against Trump.  "What a time to be alive."   

Well Liz, enjoy the limelight.  The Republicans hate you, and the Democrats are laughing at you, and when the election is over, no matter how it turns out, no one will want you around them, because your legacy will be a Benedict Arnold legacy, right along with your dad.  I often wonder what her mother thinks, since she's been silent over all this.   Liz is now campaigning with Kamala, and I know the real reason for that.   It's a competition to see who can be crowned the most unlikable person in America.   I'm just surprised George Conway isn't on the stage with them.  George Conway claims Trump is another Hitler and a cancer on American life, and  Caroline Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's daughter says Trump as a disease’.   Does anyone beside me think that falls under the category of being justifiably certifiable?

Then we have Democrats, masters at projection, accusing Trump of election interference, which is like Stalin accusing someone of being inhumane.   

"That is the ultimate danger of a Harris/Walz administration. Starting from deep in the well of corruption, how much lower will they go? The answer: as low as necessary to destroy the republic and replace it with “our democracy.” 

"As the venerable saying goes, you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out."

Finally, we just gotta see the humor in this.  Mexico's new President, Claudia Sheinbaum who is defined in one word, leftist, and appears with the approval of the drug cartels, has been sworn in what's being called a ‘Satanic’ Inauguration Ceremony.   A nation awash in murder, child sex trafficking, illegal drugs, much of which goes on with the corrupt acceptance of government officials, is now wanting to sue America gun makers for ten billion dollars.  Yep, all that corruption is the fault of American gun makers.    

It's not only time for a border wall, it's time we totally shut down immigration, deport all the illegals, most of them to Mexico who allowed them to cross their country into America, and end the North American Trade agreement putting massive tariffs on anything coming from Mexico, or even cutting Mexico out of the picture entirely. 

EVs: Are They all that they’re cracked up to be? Or Are they running a little “short?”

By Twila Page-Hughes

Editor's Note:  This appeared in Robin Itzler's Patriot Neighbors newsletter.   Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition,   E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free.  RK

The liberal leftists are in love with EVs (electric vehicles) and have pushed for them as the declared solution to climate control as there is too much pollution. Biden has declared all, or at least half, gas-powered cars, and trucks must be phased out by 2030 and we will all have to go electric vehicles. 

Well, it sounds good, but as usual, the leftist liberal nuts never look ahead or do research on anything. Just go with it! A bunch of crackpot idealists—left over hippies from the 60s are running the world now, mostly women. 

First, if we suddenly get rid of all gas-powered cars—millions of them—where are we going to put them? Can’t bury them in the ocean as it will upset the “fishies” environment. Can’t burn them as too much carbon and pollution. So, I guess they would have to bury them in the desert.
And the cost of EVs is high. So, I guess the government is going to help each person buy an EV. As if we are not in debt up to our elbows now. Watch taxes go up even more!
Then there’s the production, the high cost of batteries, plus the room they take up in most car trunks. The batteries do not like extreme heat or icy cold weather. They just conk out. Right on the freeway.

There are not enough charging stations, as it would take a long time to build them, and where is the electricity for them? Some officials said they would just tap into the electrical grid of towns and cities along the highways and use their electricity for charging stations, but there is already extreme rejection to that as the towns and cities might need their own electricity.
It would take several years to have enough charging stations built. And who wants to take a trip and spend an hour or two at least once a day going from Los Angeles to San Francisco. To say nothing of the cost and the long lines.

Truckers were told they must get rid of their diesel trucks. What would they do with the old ones? The cost to a small trucking company would be really high and most small trucking companies would go broke. They don’t have the time to stop often and charge their trucks.
Places like apartments and condominiums don’t all have private garages so where would the EV be charged? Would the owner have to go to a dealer and pay a high fee to charge their car?
Our electric utility bill is high enough now. How much higher will it go if constantly charging our cars? The average household has at least two cars.

But the biggest problem is where is all this electricity coming from to power all those EVs? It would swamp the normal grid; and it takes fossil fuels to make electricity. Is the electricity for all these EVs coming from wind and solar? That’s already fizzled out with those solar and wind plants in the desert.

What about racing cars? They stop every third round and recharge. What about buses? We are riding a bus to save on gas, and they have to stop to recharge? And for how long?

I guess these geniuses will just flip their thumb to a genie and all will appear, and we will have plenty of electricity then. The liberal unrealists just say, “Let’s do something” — they do not think at all of the consequences down the road. They shout, “the sky is falling!” and so let’s just do it. And, our modern technology is such that in a few years we could probably just shoot something up into the atmosphere to neutralize the CO2 anyway. But we need some up there to protect us from the sun’s rays.

The Latest On The Federal War Against Internal Combustion Vehicles

June 08, 2024/ Francis Menton  @ Manhattan Contrarian

I’m old enough to remember a time when there were serious environmental concerns with internal combustion engine vehicles. NOx and SOx emissions caused a thick layer of brown smog in the atmosphere during calm weather spells in summer and winter; and a layer of black soot would cover the snow along the roadside in the winter. But gradually that all got cleaned up. Today the bona fide serious environmental concerns about internal combustion engines are far in the past. But the war to eliminate them — supposedly on environmental grounds — is just ramping up.

The Biden Administration is all in with the plan to get rid of the ICE car. Why? It seems to have something to do with the non-existent “climate crisis.” Meanwhile, Congress has passed no legislation authorizing the executive agencies to force ICE vehicles off the market. Nor is the Administration honest enough to admit that they are engaged in outlawing the vehicles that 90+% of the people drive.

Instead we get massive and thoroughly dishonest regulations effectively forcing the approaching end of the ICE vehicle without ever directly saying so. All with effective dates far enough into the future that the public will not notice that anything is happening in time for the upcoming election.

Two big new regulations on this subject have just gone final. First, there was EPA’s “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles,” issued on April 18. And then yesterday from the NHTSA (part of the Department of Transportation) we get “Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for Model Years 2027 and Beyond and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Pickup Trucks and Vans for Model Years 2030 and Beyond.” The first is 373 pages in the three-column, single-spaced format of the Federal Register. The second is 1004 pages in standard double-spaced typing.

If you should take the time to read some or all of the 1377 pages of text, don’t expect to find anywhere in all of that an admission that the plan is to suppress and ultimately eliminate the internal combustion car. Instead it’s happy sweet talk about the supposed “health” benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here is an example from among many, this from page 27,844 of Volume 89 of the Federal Register:

EPA is establishing both criteria pollutant and GHG standards in this rulemaking given the need for additional reductions in emissions of these air pollutants to protect public health and welfare and based on EPA’s assessment of the suite of available control technologies for those pollutants, some of which are effective in controlling both GHGs and criteria pollutant emissions. Under these performance-based emissions standards, manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance across their fleets. EPA’s modeling provides information about several potential compliance paths manufacturers could use to comply with the standards, based on multiple inputs and assumptions (e.g., in what we have termed the central case, that manufacturers will seek the lowest cost compliance path).

“Manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance . . . .” Right. Everybody knows that the point of this is to force the majority of new car sales to be EVs or plug-in hybrids by some time in the early 2030s. But they’ll never say it straight.

And it’s the same with the new NHTSA Rule. This Rule sets new fleet-average fuel economy standards. NHTSA — aren’t they supposed to be in the business of “Highway Traffic Safety” (that’s the “HTS” part of their name)? Yes, but in the ultimate mission-creep, they are now the people behind the so-called “CAFE” (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. Obviously, the people cannot be expected on their own to make appropriate trade-offs between fuel economy and other transportation needs (like carrying capacity). Thus, NHTSA now determines that beginning in the early 2030s, manufacturers must achieve average fuel economy for their fleets of 50+ miles per gallon.

But, you say, vehicles with internal combustion engines can’t achieve that figure if they are bigger than a thimble. Exactly. So here is a small piece of NHTSA’s justification:

Reducing gasoline consumption has multiple benefits – it improves our nation’s energy security, it saves consumers money, and reduces harmful pollutant emissions that lead to adverse human and environmental health outcomes and climate change. NHTSA estimates that relative to the reference baseline, this final rule will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 659 million metric tons for passenger cars and light trucks, and by 55 million metric tons for HDPUVs through calendar year 2050. Again, these relative reductions are greater if the rule is compared to the alternative baseline, but demonstrating a similar level of absolute carbon dioxide emissions.

You say that you have a need for a vehicle that can actually carry a couple of passengers and maybe a few suitcases? What kind of a traitor are you? Your options are to buy an EV or hire a ricksha.

The agencies know full well that they are forcing a transition to EVs that customers do not want. How fast must the forced transition be? This piece from Atlas EV Hub from March 25 estimates that EPA’s Rule by itself will force EV sales to be up to 69% of new vehicle sales by 2032:

The regulation is set to bring significant changes to the auto industry, potentially putting the United States on the glide path to full electrification. Manufacturers have several options to meet the new standards, and electric vehicles (EVs) will play a pivotal role in ensuring manufacturer compliance with these regulations. Under this final rule, battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric light-duty vehicles could make up 32 percent of all new vehicle sales in model year 2027, increasing to 69 percent by model year 2032.

The NHTSA CAFE Rule would require comparable, or perhaps even higher, percentages of EVs in manufacturer sales to achieve compliance.

Do you believe that the U.S. new vehicle market will switch over to mostly EVs so quickly over the next several years? I don’t believe it for a minute. So what happens when manufacturers produce mostly EVs to comply with these Rules, and then nobody will buy them? This could be very entertaining.

No Cars for the Working Class

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

The electric streets of La La Land are full of Teslas, Rivians, Mercedes EQS’ and even pricier offerings from the rare earth mines of China. Here a Tesla Cybertruck, looking like a ramp some sportier vehicle will jump, passes Bentleys, canary yellow Lamborghinis and ice blue McLarens.

In the posher parts of California, from Beverly Hills to the Bay Area, the green revolution has come. The ubiquitous EVs charging in the driveways of seven figure mansions are shadowed by solar panels on the roof and sit side by side with signs declaring, “Hate has no home here.”

Neither does affordability.

The vast majority of electric cars, approaching 1 million, can be found in California. Compare that to the paltry 5,000 EVs in Arkansas or even the under 50,000 in a sizable wealthy blue state like Massachusetts. The entire industry of sleek shiny cars that run on batteries only exists because California taxed other car buyers to subsidize Tesla and its emerging counterparts.

California’s heavy subsidies and mild weather, its wealthy cities and conspicuously virtue signaling elites, made EVs possible, and made it impossible for them to evolve outside its warm leftist ecosystem. The vast majority of Californians (like most Americans) can’t afford, can’t use and won’t drive electric cars, but like so much else, the Newsom elites don’t tend to notice.

Electric car owners in California live in “communities with mostly white and Asian, college-educated and high-income residents” who are mostly “concentrated in Silicon Valley cities and affluent coastal areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties.” That’s why most electric cars are luxury SUVs marketed to very exclusive groups in very exclusive areas.

Outside of these enclaves, there isn’t much of an EV industry and there never will be one. Electric cars are not an emerging product, but a niche one as subsidized toys for the rich.

That’s a problem because the Biden administration, like a lot of Democrat states, is moving to ban cars by 2035. It’s one thing for California’s elites to once again disregard over 90% of the state on the assumption that a one-party system and aggressive ballot harvesting can overcome most obstacles, but the car bans have also extended to Maryland (46,060 EVs with 0.91%), Massachusetts (49,440 EVs and 0.91%), Connecticut (22,030 EVs and 0.75%), Oregon (46,980 EVs and 1.24%) and New York (84,670 EVs and 0.75%) among other blue states.

How do you get from those numbers to total adoption in a little over a decade? You don’t.

The assumption that most car owners would drink the Electric Vehicle Kool Aid and jump on board ignored the basic realities of energy, engineering and economics. There isn’t enough power, materials or money to make 2035 anything other than a political four-car pileup.

GM and Ford have lost billions trying to push electric cars. GM promised to sell 1 million EVs by 2025. In the first quarter of 20244, it sold 16,425 EVs. A year from now, it will need to have sold 250,000 of them. How is GM planning to get from 16,425 to 250,000 EVs sold? GM is bragging about the Cadillac LYRIQ. Last December, GM shut down production of the Chevy Bolt which ran to $26,000 and, unlike the LYRIQ, was too affordable and therefore not actually profitable.

GM is hoping that the Cadillac LYRIQ will tap into the same luxury EV market that Tesla, Mercedes and every EV SUV is already aimed at, but as usual it may be too late to the party Even liberal millionaires who care so much about the planet that they fly private jets to Tahiti to reconnect with nature at their second or third homes only need so many green cars.

Or as Edmunds’ Director of Insights Ivan Drury put it, most of those concerned about internal-combustion engines’ impact on the planet already bought electric vehicles.

The latest Gallup poll shows that the number of electric car owners slowly grew, but that those people are wealthy and most already have their cars. 7% of Americans now own an EV, only 9% would consider buying and 48% or half the country would not buy.

Who are these electric refusniks who won’t drink the electric kool-aid? The working class.

14% of EV owners are upper income while only 2% are working class. 61% of working class Americans won’t buy an electric car.

Lefties who can see income inequality and disproportionate impact everywhere carefully refuse to see it in their policies which would bar the majority of the country and most minorities from car ownership. A 2020 survey found that 87% of EV owners are white. In a 2023 survey, black people were the most likely of any group to say that they would not get an EV.

After decades of lecturing everyone about systemic racism, capitalism and the evils of white men, a group of rich white people have decided to make it impossible for minorities and the poor to buy new cars. But what’s a little systemic racism when it means enriching China to save the planet from the threat of cars whose components can actually be made in America?

While Secretary of Transportation in Absentia Pete Buttigieg scolds the “racist highways”, his administration is pulling off the single great example of disproportionate impact in generations. The average price of an EV is $53,469 and the average black household income is $41,500 while the average white household income is $68,000. You can still get a perfectly good family car for only $20,000, but good luck finding an EV that isn’t actively on fire in that price range.

A policy of no cars for the working class or minorities may be a little bit awkward, but in the electric kool-aid world, much like the Mercedes EQS and the Chevy Bolt, not all people or cars are created equal, and not all people should be allowed to own cars. Most actually shouldn’t.

Environmentalism ushers in a neo-feudalism in which things have to be taken away from us to save the planet. And the people most likely to feel the loss are those at the bottom.

Hike the price of cars by $15,000 and the ones most likely to notice are those for whom that isn’t a monthly paycheck, but much of their annual income. Raise the price of airline tickets to compensate for carbon footprints and it’s the poor who won’t be able to visit grandma. Nickel and dime everything from supermarket bags to soda bottles and it’s a regressive green tax.

Much of the green nickel and diming is invisible. Prices just go up a little bit on everything. But lefties have put the working class on a collision course with mobility, employment and independence. A car ban is not like a lightbulb ban or even a gas stove ban.

Americans used to love cars because they were freedom on wheels. Decades of regulations and cheap imports from Asia have turned the driving experience for most Americans into a series of warning beeps, government tracking devices, and warnings not to do this and that, while slowly inching along in one of several semi-identical white, black or dark black boxes.

And now even that is on the verge of disappearing.

A car ban means most Americans will not be able to own, they will lease. American car ownership, like free speech and every other form of freedom, will become a distant memory.

Unless the drivers of America outrun the EV banners of the Biden administration leaving them behind like Sheriff Buford T. Justice or Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane eating their non-green dust.

 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.

Thank you for reading.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles ... and Trucks

Stephen Moore  Apr 03, 2024

The Biden administration has announced in recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation system.

The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually every car made and sold in America must be an EV. No more gas cars. The New York Times comically declared that motorists don't have to worry because this "is not a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles." Sure it isn't.

Today less than 2% of cars use the electric power grid for fuel. So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from autos.

Then the EPA announced new rules for trains in California to go electric -- even as the Association of American Railroads has declared the mandate infeasible.

But wait. The climate change lobby is just getting started. There is now a new scheme to mandate that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation from diesel fuel.

This is a technological and financial nightmare for our trucking industry. A 10-ton long-haul truck is going to carry cargo across the country on an electric battery? Really?

Planes haven't been mandated by the climate lobby to stop using fossil fuels. But stick around.

Even if the technology existed to meet these mandates, this added strain on the electric grid system comes at a time when power production is already in short supply. The Wall Street Journal reports that power demands are expected to double over the next decade due to artificial intelligence and other technologies that use multiple times more energy than does the internet.

It also comes at a time when the Left has insisted that more than a dozen coal and gas plants need to be shuttered. Nuclear plants continue to get shuttered, too. Locally, greens also have started a movement to stop transmission lines and pipelines from being built.

What is the likely outcome of vastly expanding electric power demand at the same time the Biden administration is reducing supply? An energy calamity. Prices could as much as double. In California, which is at the forefront of the go-green movement, residents pay electric bills 29% higher than the U.S. average.

California is also second in the nation in power outages, with 221 from 2019 to 2023, according to Payless Power. This leaves schools, hospitals and millions of homes without electricity.

Some of the more honest green groups concede that a power shortage is coming as a result of their radical "decarbonization" agenda. Their solution is rationing energy. The government will tell you how much power you can use and when you can use it. There is also a move afoot to conserve energy by abolishing air conditioners and "nonessential" air travel -- as well as gas stoves and power lawnmowers.

Energy is the master resource. Everything we have is derivative of cheap and reliable energy. The more energy a country uses, the richer it is. If you want to disrupt a nation's progress, take away its energy sources.

This is usually a tactic that nations use against their enemies when they are at war. We are foolishly and self-destructively turning the lights off on ourselves.

The Greenfield Gazette

By Daniel Greenfield @ The Point 

While Biden Fundraises in Texas, Illegal Aliens Attack Border -March 22, 2024 - “100 migrants broke through razor wire and knocked over guards.”After years of denouncing the term “invasion” as fearmongering and claiming that the mass invasion of America by millions of illegal aliens is just “migration” by “refugees” suffering from “root causes” like poverty, we’re seeing the reality here. Tellingly this is happening to the Texas National Guard, not the federal authorities who have been ordered to keep the border open, because they’re actually trying to secure the border............

The Islamist Transformation of Ohio in One Video -  March 21, 2024 - Open borders is just the first step. This is the next step. If you’re wondering why they’re wearing blue, that’s the color of the Somali flag. Rep. Ismail Mohammed was one of the state legislators whom the Freedom Center covered in our Election Jihad report..............

Ex-CIA, UN Firm Backed by Hamas Sponsor Linked to Gaza Pier Project -  March 21, 2024 - “We look forward to the port transitioning to a commercially operated facility over time.”Last week, I wrote that Biden’s announcement of a two-month project to build a pier to transport aid to Gaza was a “trojan pier” that made no sense.“Why not just use those existing ports and have Israel look at what’s going through and bring it in?  It seems like this is a lot of work for 60 days out when there are people starving, frankly,” a reporter asked. And the spokesman responded with a confusing word salad because he had no good answer..............

We Need Chinese Products to Fight a War With China - March 21, 2024 -  “Among the deficiencies: components of solid rocket motors, shell casings, machine tools” Between the “peace dividend” and “outsourcing”, our defense industry is reliant on Chinese products.  But a swift response may not be possible, in large part because of how shrunken the U.S. manufacturing base has become since the Cold War. All of a sudden, Washington is reckoning with the fact that so many parts and pieces of munitions, planes, and ships it needs are being manufactured overseas, including in China. Among the deficiencies: components of solid rocket motors, shell casings, machine tools, fuses and precursor elements to propellants and explosives, many of which are made in China and India. There’s nothing sudden about this...........

Biden Demands Majority of Americans Buy Electric Cars They Can’t Afford - March 21, 2024 - Most Americans oppose it.   The EV sales plan crashed and burned. It was always based on the lie that the majority of Americans would be able to afford electric vehicles.  They could not and would not...........

Gen. Milley: “I Don’t Know the Exact Number of Americans That Were Left Behind” - March 20, 2024  - Miley took his disputes with Trump public when no lives were at stake and kept his private with Biden when lives were at stake. We have court martialed men for less, but there’s no accountability at the top.At the Congressional hearing on Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan disaster, Gen. Milley showed the presence of mind and command of detail that he was famous for. “I’ll be candid, I don’t know the exact number of Americans that were left behind, because the starting number was never clear,” Milley admitted. “Same is true of at-risk Afghans, SIVs the commandos, other Afghans that served with us — those numbers varied so widely that they were quite inaccurate.” The upshot of the testimony from Milley and Gen. McKenzie is that the whole thing was a mess because of the State Department which refused to evacuate until the last minute....................

Illiterate Kids Will Go to School to Learn Nothing in Electric Buses -  March 20, 2024 - Finally, there’s some good news out of the Bronx.  here was a time when the Bronx was known for literary giants like Edgar Allan Poe, James Baldwin, Mark Twain, Mary Higgins Clark and Stan Lee amongst others. Today, the Bronx has the lowest literacy rate across the five boroughs and, until recently, no bookstores.  Oh wait, not that good news. This good news. Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday kids in the Bronx will be saying goodbye to diesel school buses and hello to 180 new electric ones. Due to a $77 million federal grant, the Federal Bipartisan Infrastructure law is quadrupling the number of electric buses already present in the city. It’s also funding the nation’s first-ever electric truck charging depot to be placed at the Hunts Point Market..............

Sen. Schumer Attacks Trump’s Comments on Israel - March 20, 2024 - ‘Jews for Hamas’ strike back.  After Sen. Schumer took to the floor to the Senate floor to claim that Israel, along with Hamas was an obstacle to peace, and to threaten that unless there was regime change and a terror state in Israel, there would be sanctions, he’s back complaining about President Trump’s comments. So is the rest of the ‘Jews for Hamas’ caucus. Including the No. 2’s number two.

Biden Admin Denies, Confirms It Doesn’t Want Israel to Defeat Hamas March 19, 2024 “That’s just nonsense.”  The Biden administration has continued rolling out a pressure campaign against Israel in order to save Hamas. The despicable Schumer speech was just one prong of a larger effort that includes political and economic pressure, as well as implicit threats of even worse things to come, even as the administration continues to lie about its goals and agendas. Here’s Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at a press conference claiming that Hamas can somehow be defeated without defeating it.........

It Takes the World’s Largest Plane to Deliver Green Energy Wind Turbine Blades - March 19, 2024 -  And specialized runways too.  Remember, we need to build solar panels and wind turbines for “clean green energy” to save the planet. Now those turbine blades are not really recyclable, have a limited shelf life and delivering them will require the world’s largest plane (which doesn’t run on wind or solar) and it will require special airport facilities.......

Anti-Racism Training Fails to Cure AI of Racism -  March 19, 2024 - What hate crimes did the AI commit? Racism is everywhere. Highways are racist. Milk is racist. AI is racist. And even trying to subject AI to struggle sessions doesn’t work. A small team of AI researchers from the Allen Institute for AI, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, all in the U.S., has found that dozens of popular large language models continue to use racist stereotypes even after they have been given anti-racism training. What hate crimes did the AI commit?.....

Supreme Court to Decide First Amendment is Null and Void - March 19, 2024 - Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson is getting some attention for stating that, “my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.” But the only problem there is that Jackson was dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud in which the Supreme Court, notably including Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh appear to be leaning on the idea that the government has a right to tell companies to censor particular individuals for political reasons, as long as the government doesn’t do anything more than say it, without making further blatant threats to the company. Yes, Jackson is terrible, but consider the obnoxiousness of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Elena Kagan and Chief Justice John Roberts snickering together about the idea of government censorship.

Fleets of EV Trucks Are an Impossible Dream

Can California’s “renewable” mandates ever work?

by John Klar | Mar 14, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Climate Change, Good Reads, Opinion

(Photo by Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)

California has led the nation in a climate-saving push for EV tractor-trailer trucks to replace diesel power. Fiction eventually runs aground on reality, in this case the economic, environmental, and scientific facts that were ignored by the California Legislature when it implemented impossible mandates for gleaming fleets of EV trucks. Despite glowing visions of clean power, transitioning the nation’s semi fleet to EVs could simultaneously bankrupt the country financially and the Earth environmentally.

The Golden State’s ambitious 2022 regulatory mandates require all new cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in the region to produce “zero” emissions by 2035. Many states have followed suit, adding massive federal subsidy carrots and EPA tailpipe emission sticks. The illusion that these vehicles create “zero” emissions is rapidly dissolving as the environmental impacts of manufacturing and disposal are considered. Even if EVs were climate-saving rather than climate-destroying, the economic and logistical limitations of these fantastical mandates guarantee there will be no comprehensive EV truck fleet in California by 2035 – and probably never.

A Sisyphian Plan

California’s hasty collage of environmental policies falters on several inconvenient but insurmountable truths. The electric grid cannot handle the load. The input materials required to comply with the mandates cannot be procured. The astronomical costs are economy-destroying. And when the true expenses of externalized pollution are calculated, EV trucks do not measure up to promised environmental gains.

The nation’s electric grid, a necessary infrastructure to charge the new EV semis, is fragile, insufficient to carry the additional burden and competes with other growing demands for electricity from data centers and renewables manufacturing facilities. Energy is required to source and mine the material to build the trucks, energize them on the road, and break them down to reclaim the materials at disposal. Heavy batteries reduce truck-carrying capacity, meaning many more EV trucks are required to replace an equal fleet capacity of diesel vehicles – more trucks, more energy, and more clogged freeways. If actually achieved, California’s plan would increase electricity demand just for EV trucks by an estimated 57%. A single truck charging station is predicted to draw as much electricity as 5,000 homes.

The manufacturing inputs necessary to construct imagined EV trucks were apparently ignored when California lawmakers decided to run the economy by fantasy. Much like mandating universal incomes without economic resources, EV truck fleets cannot be magically created from thin air and a rosy pipe dream. A study by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) suggests that implementing California’s plan nationally (as envisioned by the Biden administration and the multi-state regulatory push for implementation) would require “tens of millions of tons of cobalt, graphite, lithium and nickel … that would take as much as 35 years at current global production rates and nearly 65% of global reserves of these minerals.” That’s a lot of mining and transportation – the rare earth industry had better get truckin’!

Unaffordable Diktats

Economic reality is mathematically grounding despite vain technocratic visions. The costs of all those rare materials mean the price of an EV truck is approximately double that of a traditional semi and the per-mile energy cost once on the road. Truck fleets operating on slim margins will have to spike rates sharply just to break even. Rates for all electric customers will skyrocket precipitously: The California Public Utility Commission increased electric rates for the state’s largest utility by 13% in 2023 (half of the 26% revenue increase requested by the utility to meet infrastructure needs).

The inflationary impacts of this EV truck boondoggle have gone unconsidered, but the impacts on consumers will be enormous. To install the charging stations for EV trucks alone would cost the nation an estimated $35 billion. Perhaps California will incur that debt to augment its current massive deficit, but the US deficit is already bloated by the oxymoronically monikered Inflation Reduction Act, which was largely a grocery list of renewable energy and EV spending projects. The fact that non-renewable, coal-plant-dependent, polluting EVs are profoundly regressive and disproportionately burden working-class Americans does not bode well for economic health.

EV Trucks Have No Clothes

The list of insurmountable realities that evaded California’s naked emperors in fashioning pie-in-the-sky EV truck mandates demonstrates that ideological whimsy, no matter how sincere, cannot overcome reality: The impossible fantasy pollutes more than it saves.

A 2023 study by the Manhattan Institute determined that EVs require far more upfront emissions to manufacture than conventional vehicles, that many modern gasoline-powered engines emit very little particulate matter, and that EVs burn through tire rubber much faster. These problems are amplified when applied to trucks (or tractors). The ubiquitous cacophony that EVs necessarily reduce carbon emissions is in serious doubt. The study notes:

“Accurately estimating the actual quantities of specific fuels used is complicated by the labyrinth of global suppliers and the lack of transparency with many of the companies. Without knowing all that, no one knows the ultimate real-world emissions from making an EV…

“The realistic potential of 43 tons of upstream emissions combined with operating realities of 24 tons of downstream emissions (over a vehicle lifetime) yields a total of 67 tons of EV CO2. This is 15% more than the 59-ton baseline for a comparable gasoline-fueled SUV.”

The inconvenient paradox of California’s mandates for EV trucks is that they likely do not spare the planet more carbon dioxide – let alone the toxins spewed from mines, the lithium batteries with no plan for recycling or disposal, the flickering electric grid, or the plunging of the marginalized into deeper marginalization.

It is to be hoped that in view of the myriad real-life impediments blocking their best-fantasized plans, EV emperors will glance in the mirror and pick up some fig leaves.

 

Read More From John Klar

New Data Points In New York's Unfolding Energy Implosion

March 05, 2024/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

The energy implosion set in motion by New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (Climate Act) continues to unfold slowly. This week we have gotten a few more new data points. If you can read between the lines of wild spinning by the Governor and her team of bureaucrats, you will find that the scope of offshore wind projects moving forward with accepted bids has decreased by about two-thirds, while the price has just jumped by over 30%.

First, some background. The Climate Act sets several unachievable and impossible targets, the first of which is 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030. How to get there? The bureaucrats in charge of meeting the targets have no idea what they are doing, but they have established as a first goal to have some 9,000 MW of offshore wind turbines (nameplate capacity) up and running by some point in the 2030s. Does that sound like a lot? 

Current average demand in New York State is about 17,000 MW per this NYISO 2023 Report (at page 26), meaning that New York consumes about 150,000 [G]Wh of electricity in a year. (17 x 8760 (hours in a year) = 148,920). 9,000 MW of offshore wind turbines operating at a 30% annual capacity factor will generate 23,652 [G]Wh in a year (9 x 8760 x 0.3 = 23,652). That’s less than a sixth of current consumption. And did I mention that they are also planning to increase demand by 50% or more by forcing the electrification of all automobiles and home heating and cooking? So the 9,000 MW of offshore wind turbines will provide maybe 10% of our electricity needs in the 2030s, at random and often useless times — and that’s assuming that the turbines actually get built.

Forging ahead with its nonsensical and unworkable plan, in 2018-20 New York conducted a series of solicitations for bids from offshore wind developers to put up turbines in various sites off the coast of Long Island. Those solicitations resulted in accepted bids for close to half of the 9,000 MW goal. The big projects were named Sunrise Wind, Beacon Wind, and Empire Wind 1 and 2. Here is a map of where the turbine farms are to be located:

As I reported in this post from October 5, 2023, the prices that the State agreed to pay the developers after the auction were $110.37 per MWh for Sunrise Wind, and $118.38 per MWh for Empire Wind 1.

But then in July 2023 essentially all the developers with accepted offshore wind development contracts backed out of the deals, and demanded price increases averaging about 50%. The Chair of the New York Public Service Commission, Rory Christian, reacted with outrage. My post of October 15, 2023 covered a report of Mr. Christian’s reaction that had appeared in the New York Times. Excerpt:

Mr. Christian added that the state’s ratepayers, who would have borne the cost, could not serve as an “unlimited piggy bank” for companies to tap. “We have a deal,” he said to the developers, calling on them to stand by the terms they agreed to.

Sure. Here was my reaction to Mr. Christian:

Well, Rory, I’ve got news for you: the developers aren’t going to honor the deal. You’re going to have to hold a new auction. And the prices that will be bid will be as high or higher than those just demanded by these developers.

And, as I predicted, they proceeded to hold a new auction. By January, there was word that new bids had been received, but there was no information as to bidders or prices or awards.

Which brings us to the latest news. Last Thursday, February 29, the big announcement appeared on the website of Governor Kathy Hochul, headline “Governor Hochul Announces Two Offshore Wind Project Awards, to Deliver Clean Power in 2026.” From the introduction:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the State has conditionally awarded two offshore wind projects from its fourth offshore wind solicitation – a planned 810-megawatt project, Empire Wind 1, (developed by Equinor) and Sunrise Wind, a planned 924-megawatt project (developed by Orsted and Eversource). The competitively selected projects will create more than 800 near-term family-sustaining construction jobs and invest $2 billion in near-term enhanced economic development statewide, including developer-committed investments to support disadvantaged communities. The projects, totaling over 1,700 megawatts of clean energy, will be the largest power generation projects in New York State in over 35 years once they enter operation in 2026, and will continue progress towards achievement of the State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) goal to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035.

Yes, it’s all happy talk about how great this is. Here’s some more:

“I promised to make New York a place for the renewable energy industry to do business, and we are delivering on that promise,” Governor Hochul said. “Offshore wind is foundational to our fight against climate change, and these awards demonstrate our national leadership to advance a zero-emissions electric grid at the best value to New Yorkers.”

And how about getting President Biden in on the credit:

“Today’s announcement is the latest step forward as President Biden continues to deliver historic progress on growing the American offshore wind industry, creating good-paying union jobs, and advancing our ambitious climate and clean energy goals,” said White House Deputy National Climate Advisor Mary Frances Repko.

Dare we ask how much is actually getting built and at what cost? If you can get past the introductory happy talk, you will finally come to this:

The weighted average all-in development cost of the awarded offshore wind projects over the life of the contracts is $150.15 per megawatt-hour which is on-par with the latest market prices.

And yet you will not find anywhere in this press release any mention of the prices of the previously accepted bids. But you read Manhattan Contrarian, so you know that the previously accepted prices were $110.37/MWh for Sunrise Wind and $118.38/MWh for Empire Wind 1. In other words, despite Mr. Christian’s outrage, the prices have gone up by in excess of 30%. And this is for only 1700 MW of capacity. Previously they had accepted bids for 4300 MW of capacity, and plans for 9000 MW. 1700 MW of offshore wind capacity operating at a 30% +/- capacity factor might provide 2% or so of New York’s electricity needs in the 2030s, and at mostly uselessly intermittent times. What’s happening with the rest of their big plans? No word here.

And what does the cost here mean for consumer utility bills? You can divide the $150/MWh by 1000 and quickly figure out that they are planning to pay $0.15 per kWh as a wholesale price for intermittent electricity at the source. Nothing is included in that for transmission upgrades, backup, or storage to make for a reliable 24/7/365 grid. By the time you add in those extra costs, as the percent of electricity from the wind turbines gets to around 50% it would be amazing if you could get electricity to the consumer for less than $0.50/kWh. And if the percentage of electricity from the wind turbines goes well above 50%, then all bets are off. $1.00/kWh? $2.00? Easily.

Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration reports here in 2023 (page 6) that the “levelized cost” of electricity from a new combined cycle natural gas plant is under $50/MWh — for dispatchable power with no transmission upgrades, backup or storage needed. That translates into electricity to the consumer of well under $0.20/kWh.

Governor Hochul’s press release actually includes a line as to the costs to the consumer of the newly accepted offshore wind farm bids:

The average bill impact for customers over the life of these projects under these awards will be approximately two percent, or about $2.09 per month.

Talk about deceptive. They give no methodology or assumptions as to how they came up with the cost figure. But it is obvious that it includes just the cost of blending into the grid the new power from these particular turbines, and otherwise using existing transmission lines and existing fossil fuel plants for the backup role. There is no effort whatsoever here or anywhere else in New York’s propaganda to figure out how much it will cost the consumer for electricity when the grid has been converted to all renewables plus massive amounts of some kind of backup or storage that hasn’t even been invented yet.

Memo to Attorney General James: If you have any real interest in prosecuting people who lie about plans to supposedly achieve “net zero” carbon emissions, here is the worst offender of all right under your nose. 

Editor's Note: Please be sure to read the comments, as I read this excellent article my first thought was about the structural integrity and life span of these structures and the maintenance costs.  All of which are economically troubling.  I would also like to draw your attention to this excellent CFACT article by David Wojick, CFACT blasts offshore wind multiple-site assessment as ridiculous. RK