Are Electric Cars a Threat to America?
Should Christians buy electric cars?
A new $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in Kansas will require so much electrical power that the facility will need its own coal plant to operate. A coal-fired power plant scheduled for closure will remain open to provide the power required for a new electric vehicle (EV) battery factory producing “clean” energy storage products.
It seems the factory will require anywhere from 200 to 250 megawatts of electricity to function. This is roughly the amount of power needed to keep the lights on in a medium-sized city.
This again proves that to create “clean” energy, you have to use a lot of “dirty” energy, making it a fool’s errand. There is nothing “clean” about producing “green” energy products like EV batteries. In fact, it actually takes a much greater toll on the environment to make EV batteries and other EV components than it does to continue building and using traditional gas-powered vehicles.
Making an EV battery requires 7,000 pounds of rock and dirt to be moved to get the minerals that go into that battery. All that mining and factory processing produces more carbon dioxide emissions than a gas-powered car. In other words, as more and more EV batteries get built to accommodate the climate Nazi’s “green” fantasies, the environment will become more and more polluted.
Electric cars are not “green” at all... they merely transfer the pollution elsewhere.
There are also hazardous waste issues when these batteries are taken out of service. But just the same as old internal combustion cars, not all of them will make it to a recycling facility but some will likely rot away in a field somewhere near a river or stream.
If the average American household switched to electric vehicles (EVs), their additional electricity consumption would be equivalent to 25 refrigerators.
This has left many environmentalists feeling outraged... What a surprise!
Much of the cobalt used in these batteries comes from a country where children as young as five work in mines. Democratic Republic of Congo produces about two-thirds of the world’s cobalt. The last time I looked, American oil companies don’t use child labor on drilling rigs.
The average EV battery weighs around 1,000 pounds. In New York City, multi-story parking garages are being closed because the excess weight of electric vehicles is causing structural damage.
Lithium is another problem. If today’s demand for EVs is projected to 2050, the lithium requirements of the U.S. EV market alone would require triple the amount currently produced for the entire global market. This boom in demand would be met by the vast expansion of mining. Some mining experts warn there may not be enough lithium on the entire planet to meet that need.
Earlier this week in Houston, three autonomous EVs with no drivers stopped at a red light that had gone offline because of a storm. The vehicles did not understand that it had become a 4-way stop and were waiting for the lights to turn green. As a result, the self-driving cars came to a dead stop and blocked three of the four lanes at the intersection. It took about 15 minutes to clear up the mess.
My gasoline-powered pickup has never done anything that stupid...
Reports are also surfacing of electric cars getting flooded and bursting into flames because their electrical systems get compromised. Accidents involving electric vehicles can be a dangerous challenge for first responders because of the potential for fire and electric shock. EV fires are also notoriously difficult to put out…
In a recent case near Houston, firefighters spent seven hours putting out a Tesla fire that reignited twice after they had initially put it out. They had to use 28,000 gallons of water, an amount that the department typically uses in a month. That same volume of water would have supplied one average home for about two years.
Last summer’s hot weather in California caused state energy bureaucrats to request people not charge their EVs to reduce the strain on their overloaded electrical grid. Cold weather is also a disaster for EVs, with extremely cold temperatures causing a 50% decrease in their effective range. Then, there are the load and towing capacity problems. Electric pickups are useless when it comes to pulling a trailer. Doing so can reduce their range to as little as 80 miles without another charge. I guess the climate commies don’t understand that real men and women need to use trucks to haul things.
Another strike against EVs is the fact that China is a major supplier of other minerals needed to produce electric vehicles. Again, climate change fanatics insist that we continue to build EVs despite the fact that it only increases our reliance on China. This country is generally hostile to the United States. China is also developing its own EVs, which, if imported into this country, would significantly undercut the prices of American electric vehicle manufacturers… resulting in the loss of many thousand jobs.
It is not enough for people to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles (EVs) to fight global warming. The climate brigade also wants to forcibly limit the range of people’s EVs to ensure they do not drive “too much” and kill the planet.
Even dumber is the move to EV heavy trucks. Each truck would require at least two 8,000-pound batteries for 16,000 extra pounds of extra weight... Significantly
reducing the cargo-carrying capability of the vehicle. One proposed project in Illinois to build a charging station for 30 such heavy trucks would require more electrical power than the entire city in which it would be built.
As Christians, we should care about the environment and thoughtfully steward what God has given us.
EVs are dirty, dangerous, and unreliable... They are a threat to America’s safety, security, and stability.
If, after reading this, you still think that electric cars are a good idea, take a good long look at the picture at the top of this post... That is not how we love our neighbor.
Can anyone tell me why we would want more of them?
Thank you...
Fantastic post Jim. BRAVO!!