![\"GreenTechnology.jpg\"\/](\"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/Newsletters\/GreenTechnology.jpg\")
A picture is worth a thousand words. The absurdity of a fossil-fuel powered vehicle towing another fossil fuel powered generator charging an electric car is just dumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this vid, we see a GM spokesperson showing off an electric car. Somebody asks her what is powering the electric car battery. Listen until the very end when she realizes that the coal-fired energy plant powering the building is also powering the electric car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m all for getting rid of fossil fuels. But we need a rational green strategy. Electric cars aren\u2019t going to cut it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toyota CEO agrees with Elon Musk: We don’t have enough electricity to electrify all the cars:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda\u2019s comments<\/a> at the company\u2019s year-end press conference deserve notice and no little amount of respect. He knows more about cars and their economic ecosystem than just about anyone else on the planet:<\/p> The Wall Street Journal was in attendance and noted the CEO\u2019s disdain for EVs (electric vehicles) boils down to his belief they\u2019ll ruin businesses, require massive investments, and even emit more carbon dioxide than combustion-engined vehicles. \u201cThe current business model of the car industry is going to collapse,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets\u2026 When politicians are out there saying, \u2018Let\u2019s get rid of all cars using gasoline,\u2019 do they understand this?\u201d<\/p> CarBuzz has mischaracterized Toyoda\u2019s comments. It\u2019s not \u201cdisdain for EVs\u201d he\u2019s expressing. It\u2019s disdain for the failure to count the cost of what politicians are proposing. More EVs will demand more electricity.<\/p> Toyoda is getting at two things. One, EVs are not powered by magical unicorn emissions, they are powered by the means we use to generate electricity. In Japan, the United States, and everywhere else, that\u2019s fossil fuels to the tune of a huge majority of our electric power generation (61% in the U.S., with wind and solar making up about 17%…<\/p> If the politicians who are pushing to ban gas cars and force everyone over to EVs with renewables at their present or near-future state of development do understand any of this, they\u2019re not letting on. They\u2019ll wreck modern industry.<\/p> Toyoda isn\u2019t alone in this reality check. Elon Musk recently sounded a similar note<\/a>. Note well that he also has no \u201cdisdain\u201d for EVs. He\u2019s building his empire on EVs, and his Teslas make EVs flashy and desirable. Yet he\u2019s sounding a similar warning to Toyoda\u2019s.<\/p> Perhaps two of the world\u2019s leading car experts should be listened to before Tokyo, Washington, or any other capital follows California\u2019s lead and bans gas cars without considering the ripple effects<\/p>https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/news-and-politics\/bryan-preston\/2020\/12\/21\/toyota-ceo-agrees-with-elon-musk-we-dont-have-enough-electricity-to-electrify-all-the-cars-n1222999<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Electric cars are supposed to be more environmentally friendly, avoiding the stink and pollution of fossil fuel vehicles. But there\u2019s another side to this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The disposal of used electric batteries poses a terrible pollution problem, similar to that of nuclear waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 1 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2017. The study authors estimate that those cars alone will ultimately result in 250,000 tons of discarded battery packs. If those were to end up in landfills, they\u2019d run the risk of going through a process called \u201cthermal runaway,\u201d which is basically a chemical reaction in the battery that can cause it to heat up, potentially to the point of burning or exploding. (It\u2019s the reason why TSA prohibits spare lithium-ion batteries in checked baggage when you board a plane.)<\/p> The electric vehicle industry needs to solve its battery disposal problem. <\/p>https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2019\/11\/6\/20951807\/electric-vehicles-battery-recycling<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n How much waste would be generated if millions more electric cars were sold each year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, batteries used in electric cars contain cobalt. Two-thirds of the world\u2019s cobalt production comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a communist dictatorship that sends tens of thousands of African kids into mines, scrabbling and retrieving cobalt. These kids get sick and even die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From CNBC: \u201cThe African nation supplies more than two thirds of the world\u2019s cobalt but human rights groups have raised concerns that the industry relies on child workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/06\/16\/tesla-glencore-cobalt-gigafactory.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oops. We don\u2019t worry too much about the inconvenience of human rights in our Brave New World run by AI, Big Tech, and multilateral corporations interested only in the bottom line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While virtue-signaling drivers in the West proudly show off their electric cars \u2013 trying to solve a global warming problem that might not even exist \u2013 African kids are being exploited and dying. Battery waste is piling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pesky problems like human rights get brushed under the rug in the name of economic \u201cprogress\u201d and climate change activism. This is the new scientific materialist technocratic state that is being pushed by Big Tech and our \u201celites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cnew normal\u201d and \u201cbuild back better\u201d doesn\u2019t include real research into clean, unlimited sources of energy. It\u2019s about time we as a nation rearranged our priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need a massive investment in R & D to study overunity devices \u2013 devices that can take energy from the vacuum, or utilize what Tesla called \u201ccosmic energy.\u201d We need to study the push-pull effect of permanent magnets, which hold their charges indefinitely. Properly arranged, permanent magnets could turn a generator rotor or induce a flow of current through a wire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we get absurd \u201cGreen New Deals\u201d that rely largely on fossil fuel technologies, and use conservation to make people do without. Meanwhile, the elites fly on private jets and live in mansions with the carbon footprint of small towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United States is known for its ability to innovate. Let\u2019s get off the fossil fuel bandwagon and on to some real research into frontier physics. We can do it! It will be public money well spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Update 2\/24:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexico gives up on renewables, revives coal industry<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexico, the eleventh biggest population on Earth, was all enthused about renewables a few years ago, but now they are actively winding back wind and solar and reactivating coal projects. Mines are being reopened, coal miners are being hired and the state owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has been told to buy electricity from its own coal generators before they buy electricity from the privately owned renewables generators.”<\/p>https:\/\/joannenova.com.au\/2021\/02\/un-greening-mexico-gives-up-on-renewables-revives-coal-industry\/<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n NPR reports that China is building more than 300 NEW coal-fired energy plants around the world<\/a>. Why? Because renewables aren’t reliable as of yet. We need a lot more research into non-fossil fuel solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Update 4\/10-2021:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Solar panels (another green energy source) are also beginning to create pollution problems. Wired<\/em> magazine states in an article titled, Solar Panels Are Starting to Die, Leaving Behind Toxic Trash: <\/strong>Photovoltaic panels are a boon for clean energy but are tricky to recycle. As the oldest ones expire, get ready for a solar e-waste glut<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives\u2014and right now, most of the world doesn\u2019t have a plan for dealing with that. <\/p> But we\u2019ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the\u00a0International Renewable Energy Agency<\/a>\u00a0projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the\u00a0total e-waste humanity produces<\/a>\u00a0each year, standard electronics recycling methods don\u2019t cut it for solar panels.<\/p>https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash\/<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “Helping the environment” by buying electric cars and using solar panels is not a panacea for a green earth because these technologies create enormous pollution problems. A massive change in national energy research is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fossil fuels cause pollution and waste and are inefficient sources of energy. Replacing fossil fuels with clean energy should be a priority for national energy policy. But not like this. A picture is worth a thousand words. The absurdity of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}There isn’t Enough Electricity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Disposal Problems <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Changing Energy Research Priorities<\/h4>\n\n\n\n