The clean energy myth
Some people are so gullible it’s frightening. I am amazed at all the people who think electric vehicles (EVs) run on "clean energy." You would think college professors would be wise to this clever deception but, like Pavlov’s dogs, there are some who will buy into anything that has ‘renewable’ or ‘green’ in the title especially if it involves money confiscating government legislation.
The energy that operates EVs isn’t really ‘clean’ and it isn’t free. Electricity is a secondary energy source that must be produced from primary sources. Today, coal, natural gas and petroleum make up 79% of the primary sources that create electricity, with nuclear adding 9% more. So-called ‘renewables’ contribute just 12%. Wind and solar together make up only 37% of "renewables" (the other being hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal). The reality is that if environmentalists got their way and shut down fossil fuel and nuclear energy generation, everyone’s Tesla’s would be covered with cobwebs before the vehicles received enough juice to leave the driveway.
Here’s more facts to consider. 5% of the electricity transmitted long distances in the U.S. is lost due to inherent inefficiency (U.S. Energy Information Admin.). More energy is consumed in the fabrication, transportation and on-site assembly of wind generators, including the house-sized solid concrete foundations, than many of the machines can produce in their lifetime. The Chinese who sell this equipment are laughing their butts off at the stupidity of Americans who think these expensive academic curiosities will change the environment other than the slaughter of endangered birds.
Automobile manufacturers are gung-ho on EVs because they help the companies meet increasingly strict gas mileage standards imposed by the government. They view the lack of charging stations and power grids capable of handling a tsunami surge in demand for electricity after the vehicles are sold as a tax-payer’s problem.
Irrefutable scientific data (not political or business consensus or personal opinion) has shown that anthropogenic CO2 has a negligible effect on the world’s naturally changing climate. So why do so many academia, politicians and news media doomsayers claim otherwise? Fear and money! Fear produces riches for the eco-scammers and power for the politicians, the facts ..well, not so much which is why the non-scientific social media and talk show hosts try so hard to suppress the facts with censorship and propaganda.
I feel it isn’t the place of government to dictate and promote one source of energy using taxpayer funded rebates, research projects and new infrastructure while using taxation and crippling regulations to deter other viable options like fossil fuels (by banning drilling and pipelines). An entrepreneur using his own money to produce reliable tidal hydroelectric power generation from the rise and fall of sea levels for example, would end up competing with a big business or university getting research grants from the government for the same idea. The policy of Laissez-faire that made America great is dying. It all comes down to money, fear and corrupt political power instead of common sense and Constitutional rights. Sadly, it happens because many people are too brainwashed, poorly educated or myopically biased to figure out what is really going on.
John Merlette lives in Bigfork