Dear Editor;
Recent attention given to gas prices in our area should be the backbreaking straw to swing people away from fossil fuel and toward renewable power sources – which continue to improve as technology advances and production scales up.
As an early adopter not wishing to rub salt in anyone’s wounds I will only say it’s sure nice to plug in at home instead of waiting in line for gas. And while I know it takes energy to make energy I’ll only say that the path we’ve chosen for 100 years enriches only corporations while continuing to pollute skies which cleared to a brilliant blue alternative when we stopped driving and polluting during the pandemic. It should be obvious which direction we need to go but unfortunately for this country it takes time to sway public opinion.
Soon there will be more options for those who feel they need larger vehicles like trucks and vans and momentum is slowly but surely swinging in the right direction. It’d be prudent to wait purchasing a new vehicle that will only tie you to a gas pump for another five to ten years.
James Blake/San Ramon
Please spare us the elitist sanctimony.
1. As of 2020, over 3/5 of US electricity is generated from fossil fuels, nearly 1/3 of which derives from coal.* EVs are therefore not “zero emission” vehicles, notwithstanding certain manufacturers’ misleading claims amplified by complicit EV promoters and parroted credulous EV owners.
2. California’s strained, antiquated and Byzantine electricity grid cannot meet demand on at least a dozen hot evenings each summer, prompting rolling “brown outs.” Yet EV evangelists won’t acknowledge what will happen when we add 25 million EVs to the grid during the most vulnerable hours of the hottest days.
3. Some self-avowed “progressives” inexplicably favor policies which artificially increase petrol prices to coerce faster EV adoption. The burden of such costs falls overwhelmingly on the poorest families who can’t afford any new car, tend to live the farthest from work and work in jobs that are less conducive to remote work or commuting on transit. Such policies (e.g., punitive petrol taxes) are thus punishingly REGRESSIVE.
*Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
Bingo. On this we can agree. I’m all for more OPTIONS.. but not mandates. But … there’s more!
4. Europe banked on so-called “Green Energy”, and energy production is now off by 25%! Europe is now bracing for a brutal Winter. (Wind and solar intermittent.)
5. Germany has sky high energy prices.
6. Germany and others shut down Green nuclear power (zero CO2), and are now burning… coal! (France, the UK, China and others are building more new NP plants. There are a few new US installations.)
7. Batteries are horribly filthy, really toxic. So are wind turbine blades.
8. We were taught in school CO2 is plant food! (We are producing record amounts of food.)
9. The Biden Administration has hobbled our energy production, while urging the Middke East to provide more oil. We now have Jimmy Carter inflation.
P.S. I’m all for more options, practical options.
All scalable means of electrical generation and motor fuel production and combustion entail externalities. It’s literally a case of “pick your poison.” People pitching pollyannish panaceas are either disingenuous opportunists or misinformed dupes.
Dang, Coog, we may question your position(s) but you have that alliteration thing going on…
We’re all gonna need bigger boats. I’m surprised ol’ Elon isn’t making those. There’s nothing to see and do on Mars, after all.
Gas prices are driven up by anti American liberal policies, and that’s why we need electric.
Your logic is stunning.
But it gets better. California will shut down green Diablo Canyon in 2025, which provides 10% or more of our statewide electricity, 24 / 7 / 365. It provides a huge share of our “green” energy, and baseload energy.