Before we get going on the main topic, a couple of short takes. Yesterday in the US was Flag Day, marking the day that the Second Continental Congress, in 1777 decreed: “the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white,” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” It replaced the Continental Colors, the same pattern of stripes but with the King’s Arms in the Canton.
Yesterday was also the 40th Anniversary of the final Victory of the British liberation of the Falklands as the white flag was raised over Port Stanley. Thus was the message sent that the Lion protects her cubs, and it was noticed even in Moscow who noticed that the UK would fight. The first move in the end of the cold war.
Also a reminder that we, the Americans, have a fair number of allies, and even more protectorates (like continental Europe) who have completely outsourced their defense to be conducted to the last American. But we have also one friend and partner who will share the risks and dangers of leading free people. As it has been since Churchill and Roosevelt met at Argentia Bay well before Pearl Harbor.
We don’t always agree, and that’s one of our strengths, but in the last analysis, we remain friends and allies, free and equal. We are the countries that built the modern world, and I don’t think we are done yet.
The question of the day is: “Is it moral to own an electric car?“
via John Hinderaker of PowerLine. Origin from Ronald Stein at CFACT.
The top image is an oil well, where 100 percent organic material is pumped out of the ground, taking up around 500 to 1000 square feet. Then it flows in pipelines safely transporting the oil to refineries to be manufactured into usable oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products for society, and into transportation fuels needed by the world’s heavy-weight and long-range infrastructures of aviation, merchant ships, cruise ships, and militaries.
The lower image is just one lithium supply mine where entire mountains are eliminated. Each mine usually consists of thirty-five to forty humongous 797 Caterpillar haul trucks along with hundreds of other large equipment. Each 797 uses around half a million gallons of diesel a year. So, with an inventory of just thirty-five the haul trucks alone are using 17.5 million gallons of fuel a year for just one lithium site.
Today, a typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminium, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.
It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just one battery.
Fossil fuels are vastly cleaner, in part because they are so efficient. And electric vehicles, once the mining and attendant environmental degradation are complete, run overwhelmingly on fossil fuels and nuclear power:
We should all know that an electric vehicle battery does not “make” electricity – it only stores electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, and occasionally by intermittent breezes and sunshine. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid as 80 percent of the electricity generated to charge the batteries is from coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
Since twenty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S is from coal-fired plants, it follows that twenty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered.
Since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S is from natural gas, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are natural gas-powered.
Since twenty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S is from nuclear, it follows that twenty percent of the EVs on the road are nuclear-powered.
And note that the 40% running on Natural Gas could be just as easily traditional vehicles with a simple conversion to run directly (and much more efficiently) on Compressed Natural Gas.
Here’s where the cobalt in your EV battery comes from.
Virtue signal those kids lives lost for your EV, well at least they aren’t ‘dark Satanic mills’ they’re far more dangerous.
And, of course, to the extent that a tiny percentage of the electricity stored in EV batteries comes from solar panels, they are mostly produce by slave labor in China. And, for what it’s worth, Chinese solar panels are produced with coal-fired power plants.
“Green” energy is a catastrophically bad idea. I think many people understand that wind and solar power and electric vehicles are economically ruinous, but when we also take into account environmental degradation and child and slave labor, one can seriously question whether it is immoral to buy an electric car.
John nailed it here, if you’ve an ounce of conscience, I don’t need to add any more.