Dummy's electric car deception
On Thursday, President Joe Biden told Americans he was going to be “honest” with us and assured us that we would save $80 a month if only we bought a new electric car.
Oddly, he somehow forgot to mention how long it would take to pay off that car to get to the point where that “savings” would finally kick in.
Speaking from the South Court Auditorium at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., Biden gushed about the technology of the “next generation of electric vehicles” and claimed that they would be a boon for Americans.
Under his “plan,” Biden crowed,”a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.”
What a wonderful savings. That is a whole $960 a year. But there is a big problem with realizing this fantastic savings Biden has “planned” for us.
One has to buy and pay off a new car before any “savings” it might offer can be realized.
According to NBC News, the average purchase price of an electric vehicle in February of this year was $60,054.
But, according to the New York Post, it was even higher.
Citing Kelly Blue Book, the Post reported that “the average price of a new electric vehicle in February was $64,685.” (NBC cited data from “Edmonds,” but we think they meant Edmunds.)
That is a huge hike over the average prices that everyday Americans are paying for cars today, the Post said, adding that the cost of an electric car is:
“nearly 2.5 times the average price of a new compact car ($26,196), almost twice the average cost of a new compact SUV ($33,732), and 52 percent more expensive than the average sports car ($42,555).”
Also, just going by Biden’s “savings,” if you spent at least $60,000 on your electric car, your $960 annual savings would take 62 years, six months, and two weeks to get to the break-even point on the price of that car.
The inconvenience of charging an electric vehicle was also ignored Biden’s “savings” calculation. A depleted battery will leave you searching for a charging stations that are not only much fewer in number than gas stations, but also leave you at the mercy of charging speeds that could mean hours of waiting until you are back on the road.
Then we have to figure in the geopolitical costs. EVs are manufactured using many of the rare earth elements that come from China. Greater manufacturing and use of EVs necessarily enriches China, the most oppressive nation on earth.
There is also the dirty secret that neither Biden, nor any other greenie Democrat wants to talk about:
Pervasive use of EVs means not only higher taxes, but brand new taxes imposed on many of us.
Drivers pay a per-gallon gasoline tax to pay for the roads. If fewer people are buying gas and paying that tax, governments will look for new revenue sources.
One proposal has that revenue coming from a mileage tax. And with a tax like that, we are giving the government a brand new way to tax us — not to mention track us with the government-owned devices installed in our cars to tally the miles we drive.
https://principia-scientific.com/american-governments-electric-car-con-trick-exposed/
*************************************************‘It’s A Huge Problem’: California’s Sky-High Electricity Prices Bring A Shock To Biden’s EV Dreams
California electricity bills are among the highest in the nation and are set to continue skyrocketing, putting state and national green ambitions in the spotlight.
The state’s largest energy providers reported average monthly bills dwarfing those of other states in 2021, E&E News reported. If prices keep rising, as current projections say they will, electric vehicles will continue to be more expensive than traditional gas-powered cars.
The surging prices could act as an impediment for the electric vehicle industry in the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in 2021 banning new traditional gas vehicles by 2035 while President Joe Biden outlined a nationwide goal of having electric vehicles account for half of total car sales by 2030.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has repeatedly said Americans should buy electric vehicles to avoid the fluctuating costs of gasoline.
“It’s a huge problem,” Severin Borenstein, the director of the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, told E&E News.
“Or we’re gonna mandate electrification and then there’s just going to be huge political blowback,” he added. “Mandating electrification when you’re charging people 30 or 40 cents a kilowatt-hour is going to be immensely expensive.”
Borenstein added that consumers may be discouraged to transition to electric vehicles if they hear about the high charging costs via word of mouth, according to E&E News.
The California Public Utilities Commission noted in a May 2021 industry report that it is “cheaper to fuel a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle than it is to charge an EV.”
Southern California Edison Co. (SCE), Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric ( SDG&E) — the state’s three largest utility companies which provide more than 65% of California residents with power — said their average March bills were $149, $165 and $150 respectively, according to E&E News.
That means SCE, PG&E and SDG&E customers paid 33 cents, 30 cents and 38 cents per kWh respectively in March. The average price of electricity nationwide was estimated to be 10.59 cents per kilowatt hour in 2020, the latest federal government data showed.
The 2021 monthly bill average, meanwhile, is estimated to have been $136, $133 and $150 for SCE, PG&E and SDG&E customers, E&E News reported. Prices are only projected to go up from there, hitting $162, $164.50 and $221.50 per month for the three respective companies in 2030, according to state data.
“If you want people to make big investments in electrification, there needs to be some kind of a payoff for them,” Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, recently said at a public forum, according to E&E News. “And the payoff has got to be that we make electricity rates look very affordable by comparison to the alternatives.”
Toney said California lacks a strategy for showing the positive impacts of electrification for consumers.
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Wind Projects Rejected in California and Ohio, NBC Reports ‘At Least 40’ Communities Have Rejected Big Solar Since 2021
You won’t read about this in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And you surely won’t see it reported by National Public Radio. But the rejections of big renewable projects are continuing all across the country and it appears that rejections of Big Solar projects are exceeding the Big Wind rejections. More on that in a moment.
First, the wind rejections. Last month, the Bureau of Land Management rejected an application for a 144-megawatt wind project that was proposed to be built in Lake and Colusa counties, which are located northwest of Sacramento. According to an article written by Elizabeth Larson of Lake County News, the BLM’s “denial was based on potential resource conflicts and the inadequacy of the information provided to the BLM to address these conflicts and to move forward with the environmental review.”
Larson also quoted Bob Schneider, a member of the Protect Walker Ridge Alliance, who said, “Molok Luyuk or Condor Ridge, also known as Walker Ridge is a special and spiritual place that tells a story of plate tectonics, diversity of plants and animals, Native American habitation over thousands of years.” Larson also reported that the same area had been targeted for a 60-megawatt wind project in 2010 by a Canadian company, AltaGas Income Trust. But that project was canceled in 2013.
The rejection is only the latest in a long string of rejections of Big Wind in California, including the unanimous vote last June by the Shasta County Planning Commission to reject the proposed 216-megawatt Fountain Wind project, which aimed to put up to 71 turbines standing 679 feet high near the town of Burney.
It's notable that these rejections are occurring in California, which has some of America’s most-aggressive decarbonization policies, which include a requirement for 100% zero-carbon electricity and an economy-wide goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.
But it’s not just California. Earlier this month, according to Farm and Dairy, the Ohio Power Siting Board rejected two separate applications for “rehearing regarding the board’s decision to deny an application filed by Republic Wind to construct a 200-megawatt wind-powered electric generating facility in Seneca and Sandusky County.”
The rejections in California and Ohio are the latest examples of the years-long battle over wind energy siting. Adding these examples to the Renewable Rejection Database shows that at least 325 government entities from Maine to Hawaii have rejected or restricted wind projects since 2015. These rejections are occurring at the same time the wind industry is hoping to get yet another extension of the production tax credit, the lucrative federal subsidy that has driven the growth of wind energy over the past two decades. According to Axios, the proposed federal budget just released by the White House for 2023 does not include an extension of the tax credit.
While wind projects continue to face lots of local friction, the bigger news is the surging number of rejections of Big Solar. On March 8, David Ingram of NBC News published a piece titled “County by county, solar panels face pushback.” But Ingram buried the lede. His article began by quoting an academic from a large state university who said it was “kind of funny” that there was local opposition to big renewable projects.
But Ingram buried the lede. In the 13th paragraph of his article, Ingram finally got to the point. He wrote, “NBC News counted 57 cities, towns, and counties across the country where residents have proposed solar moratoriums since the start of 2021, according to local news reports, and not every proposed ban gets local news coverage. At least 40 of those approved the measures. Other localities did so in earlier years.”
Ingram explained that the land-use “battles have played out state by state and county by county, forcing communities to consider just how much they are willing to sacrifice to decarbonize the economy. They have also triggered a hunt for new locations to put millions of more solar panels.” He continued, “Local governments in states such as California, Indiana, Maine, New York, and Virginia have imposed moratoriums on large-scale solar farms, as a national push for cleaner energy has collided with complaints about how the projects affect wildlife and scenic views.”
I emailed Ingram three times asking to see the list of communities that have proposed solar prohibitions. He did not reply. Nevertheless, Ingram deserves credit. He’s doing the kind of analysis that has not been done by media outlets like the Washington Post and NPR, whose reporting, as I point out in a piece published earlier this month in Quillette, has been atrocious. In particular, the reporting done by Julia Simon, a reporter for NPR, has been, as I explained, “propaganda masquerading as news.”
Furthermore, if Ingram’s numbers are correct, solar rejections and restrictions may be happening more frequently than wind rejections. As I reported in January, at least 31 wind projects were rejected in 2021. If 40 Big Solar projects have been rejected since the beginning of 2021, that means that solar projects are meeting even more friction than wind projects.
The bottom line here is that the rejections of wind and solar are continuing apace and they provide yet further proof that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the expansion of large-scale renewables. Of course, that fact is seldom, if ever, mentioned by the academics and NGOs who are promoting the all-renewable mirage. As Ingram points out, a recent report by the research firm Wood Mackenzie and by the Solar Energy Industries Association listed “siting restrictions” as a key limiting factor on growth.
Thus, it is clearer than ever before that the expansion of the renewable industry in the U.S. depends on its ability to capture ever-increasing amounts of land in rural communities. And those communities are fighting back.
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XR activists meet in Hyde Park as they prepare to cause more mayhem
Extinction Rebellion activists have gathered in London this morning as they prepare to bring more chaos to the capital later this week after blocking two major bridges on Sunday.
The climate demonstrators - who have promised a week of action as they continue their calls for no new investment in fossil fuels - gathered at The Albert memorial in Kensington Gardens on Monday morning dressed in doctors' scrubs and holding signs saying 'the Earth is in a critical condition'.
Earlier today, the activists met in Hyde Park to hold 'non-violent' direct action training, while others carried out a 'mass outreach' in central London which included the presence of a papier mache elephant at Kensington Gardens.
They were also seen carrying out a demonstration in south Kensington on Monday afternoon.
There are no planned 'actions' - potential roadblocks - until Wednesday this week, with more planned for the Easter weekend, according to the group's website.
Over the weekend, the activists attempted to bring London to a standstill by carrying out roadblocks, including the blocking of Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridges on Sunday afternoon.
Crowds were seen sitting in the middle of the road, waving multicoloured flags bearing the group's 'extinction' symbol and placards that read 'there is no planet B' and 'we want to live', and listened to music and speakers in sunny weather.
Demonstrators did, however, allow ambulances and fire engines to cross the bridges, with organisers parting the crowd by shouting 'blue light'.
Extinction Rebellion have billed the latest protests part of 'the final push in the plan to end fossil fuels'.
On their website, the group said: 'Come to London from April 9 to April 17 and be ready to continue in civil resistance on at least the following three weekends.
'This is a crucial moment. Our reliance on fossil fuels is funding wars, driving the cost of living scandal and leading to climate breakdown. This is why we are demanding an immediate end to all new fossil fuel investments.'
The group have said similar action to block 'areas of the city for as long as possible' is planned every day for a week or more.
They have pledged that 'our disruption will not stop until the fossil fuel economy comes to an end, ' according to the Extinction Rebellion website.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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