I & I Editorial BoardIn perfect Democratic Party form, the Biden administration has dropped another government burden on the private sector. Two days ago, the White House rolled out “the toughest-ever” automobile emissions standards. The objective, of course, is to force Americans to buy the cars that the ruling class wants them to drive. There’s a big problem here, though – the grid won’t be up to the task of keeping tens of millions of electric vehicles charged.
The headline from a Bloomberg story last week summed up the plan: “Biden Set to Crack Down on Auto Emissions to Accelerate EV Sales.”
Rules decreed by the Environmental Protection Agency are intended to “propel electric vehicle sales well beyond current levels,” says Bloomberg. “The EPA has projected that to meet proposed mandates, electric models would need to make up roughly two-thirds of car and light truck sales in 2032 — up from less than a tenth last year.”
This is no noble effort to prevent a climate catastrophe. Democrats, eco-activists and the thoroughly compromised media continually argue that we have to move to EVs to save the sky, but the federal rules and state mandates they propose and issue are part of a larger plan to drive Americans out of cars and into public transit, which is failing across the country.
There are a number of problems with the march to EV-topia. They’re not zero-emission vehicles, they’re an extravagant purchase, costly to repair, expensive to insure, hazardous to own, and they create a new class of hazmat problems.
On top of all that, charging them is a hassle, which is only going to become worse. America, in 2024, is already running out of power.
“Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid,” the Washington Post reported earlier this month.
This “power crunch imperils” utilities’ capacity to provide the massive amount of electricity “needed to charge the millions of electric cars and household appliances required to meet state and federal climate goals.”
As the grid coughs, wheezes and sputters, as construction of solar and wind farms can’t keep up with the retirements of natural gas and nuclear plants, politicians such as Joe Biden and a small mob of governors that includes Gavin Newsom, California’s one-man demolition crew, are busy outlawing automobiles that run independent of the power supply (outside of the electricity needed to run gas pumps).
But that’s OK because Americans will be buying EVs, and when they can’t be charged because the demand for power outstrips the supply, we will hop on buses, trains and subways – exactly where those politicians and planners want us. Our self-appointed superiors even admit they wish to “help get people out of their cars,” and lead a shift from “ownership to usership” of vehicles.
In their way of thinking, only the elites should have the freedom that automobiles deliver. Everyone else must be sardined into mass transit. The EV fetish is nothing but a navigation point on the left’s route to a world in which a car is a luxury item that only few will have.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
“…the grid coughs, wheezes and sputters, as construction of solar and wind farms can’t keep up with the retirements of natural gas and nuclear plants,…”
Even if it were possible for new solar and wind plant construction to keep up with coal retirements, the problem would remain because solar is daylight dependent and wind is weather dependent. A grid composed of those sources must have thermal baseload and gas peaking plants to balance the “unreliables”. Relying exclusively on natural gas will put us in the same bind as the energy crisis of the 1970s — then too dependent on petroleum liquids, and soon to be too dependent on natural gas with its price volatility, inadequate pipeline infrastructure and the Biden Admin making war on it too. Nuclear plants, at present, are not load following plants and cannot balance solar/wind. Perhaps some new designs will permit load following, but that is decades away.
The CO2 obsession and putting the voting public indirectly in charge of the energy system has brought us to a bad place, indeed. Democrats will be the last to figure it out.
We would need to build 150-200 new nuclear plants to power the US car fleet with electricity. The larger the EV number, the closer we get to rationing. This is clearly intentional.
Great post RankAttay!
The nuclear part of the nuclear power plant does not need to be build.
We have a big fusion reactor , the Sun, at a safe 8 light minutes distance. No danger and no little pesky details on what to do with the waste. It’s all free. The only drawback is some nerts like Gates won’t get a hard-on because they can build micro-nukes that lack guards and security as the big nuke plants have
We only need to capture that energy , store it and turn it into electricity when we need it
We use real 100% non mother nature’s green solar panels , leaves, that are not a toxic waste after 20 years like those things build in China by slave labor. The only drawback is the democrat party won’t get $$ kickbacks from solar panel farm companies they sent all those ‘green-energy’ subsidies to. So they need to come up with another way to get kickbacks but don’t worry, democrats are very smart when it gets corrupt schemes to get money. They will be ok.
Those green solar panels will turn the radiation from that free fusion reactor into stored energy by producing coal from the abundant co2 in the air. As a by product, we get more oxygen we can use. The coal is stored in the ground. Fun fact: even the desert plants store coal in the ground —long as they are not destroyed or covered by those toxic non-sustainable solar panels from China
Next, we dig up the coal, basically coal is a safe and clean non toxic battery. Fun fact! Coal can be dug up at near surface like in Wyoming Black Powder Basin or by digging little deeper.
We burn that coal cleanly (eg use scrubbers), heat the water so it boils and pressure will move the generators and voila, we have energy and co2 that can be used by our green solar panels to capture more energy from our free safe fusion reactor in the sky.
100% sustainable all natural energy
And regarding those coal plants, we have already many but unfortunately some are slated for shutdown because it is a competitor to the toxic green energy industrial complex that gives kickbacks to the democrat party.
So if we can get rid this corruption, we can have all the clean 100% renewable 100% natural nuclear energy without any additional cost
With all the competing power users, how will the elites charge their EVs?
The Biden Administration is forcing Americans-using the law- to buy electric cars. Many see this as an infringement on liberty. But it is more than that. It is an infringement on capitalism and free markets.
I believe it seriously began with the suits against 2nd hand smoke from cigarettes. I believe this occurred in the late 1950s-early 1960s. This led to previous Administrations cavalierly outlawing smoking cigarettes, even on private property.
Today, law is being used to, not only remove perceived hazards, but also to force people to buy what they don’t want.
Do not be surprised if the US-a nation founded on the rule of law-finds other ways to tyrannize the people, using new laws promulgated to do the tyranny.
Environmental Laws have already been used as the tools to subjugate it’s citizens rights to their private property. I believe other ways-as insidious ways- are going going to be used. All these ways will have the imprimatur of “Law”-so those who respect the Law will not put up to much of a fight.
I believe it was Jefferson who wrote that we will all be suffocated and strangled by too many laws. I think our suffocation is transpiring-and that-like the frog in the pot of hot water-the boiling has begun.
Nice to see an editorial chock full of data substantiating the premise.
No Freedom of Choice under Biden and the Eco-Freaks you take what Big Brother demands you take More reasons Biden should be voted out of office in November
Bertha Benz put EV’s to bed 140 years ago when she replaced her electric car with her husband’s new invention the modern ICE automobile. Going backwards isn’t progress.
Biden’s EPA driven EV mandate will not survive simply because it strikes at the very heart of the American love of vehicular freedom. So far, EVs only satisfy a small segment of market needs. Those wanting long range, high cargo capacity or inexpensive EVs struggle to find something suitable. So ramming a government solution down those consumers’ throats is a recipe for backlash.
Politicians need to remember:
– coercion isn’t persuasion
– compliance doesn’t mean agreement
– silence doesn’t mean acceptance