Posted on 06/23/2011 6:55:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
One of Barack Obama's favorite fantasies is that Americans will soon abandon their SUVs and pick-ups in favor of battery operated cars. Implementing energy policies to "boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" is part of his overall plan to force us to go green.
The supposed upside is the standard line of worshippers of the green god – reduced greenhouse gas emissions and a cleaner environment.
But, like so much of the hope-and-change agenda, the electric car idea isn't off to a very good start, and new research finds it may not be so green after all either.
Obama hasn't been shy about pitching plug-in technology, even dedicating part of his State of the Union address to a prediction of a million battery cars on the road by 2015.
And, he's put your tax dollars behind making his prediction come true, too, with $240 million in grants to General Motors for the Volt in addition to the $50 billion bailout (takeover), not to mention another $150 million to the Korean manufacturer of the batteries.
After all of that we're left with "a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car" as one industry analyst put it. So, Obama threw in another $1.5 billion in subsidies to buy down the price of each car.
In the March issue of A Line of Sight we documented that sales of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf were happening by the dozens per month rather than the tens of thousands some had predicted.
Consumers are hard pressed to warm to a $41,000 four seat compact that needs to be plugged in every 30 miles to recharge the battery. Even the $7,500 taxpayer subsidy can't pump up sales.
While the urge to be the first early adopter on the block will spur a few sales, even the liberal Slate.com says the Volt is "a rich man's ride," not the working man's transportation solution of Obama's dreams.
Now, it looks like electricity rates – the plug-in fuel source – is about to go up dramatically.
The Chicago Tribune reports that new regulations being implemented by the Obama Administration are forcing the closure of large numbers of power plants across the nation.
As new plants are opened or existing ones converted to a more expensive fuel source, the higher costs will be passed on to consumers in their electricity bills. The Tribune says the Illinois Power Authority "estimates that by 2017 the energy portion of bills could jump by 65% from today's rates."
That kind of price spike will cause one to pause before recharging the battery.
Just as his policies are an intentional effort to drive up the cost of fossil fuels, he intentionally set out to drive up the cost of electricity to consumers, as well.
Candidate Obama in 2008 said, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Obama also made known his animosity for coal, the least expensive fuel source for power plants, saying his plan "will bankrupt" anyone who even thinks about operating a coal fired plant.
His cap-and-trade legislation failed to pass a vote of Congress, but that hasn't stopped Obama. Through the EPA, he is implementing the new regulations by executive fiat.
Then there is a just released study conducted by the British Government (who is also heavily subsidizing battery technology) and the car industry that blows apart the claim that battery cars lower greenhouse emissions.
"Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol (gas) equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries," according to the analysis.
The study found that a battery car would need to be driven over 80,000 miles just to break even with total emissions produced by a gas powered car. While driving of the electric car produces less emissions, the problem is that emissions produced in "manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 percent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed."
If the need for a second battery replacement is factored into the equation, as well as the disposal of old batteries, total emissions far more than double for a plug-in electric car.
The President and his Central Planners have a big grudge against traditional energy – oil, natural gas, and coal.
They also drank full of the green Kool-Aid and are committed to forcing America to transform to alternative energy sources. The problem is we get stuck with the bill and will end up with a whole new – and maybe even worse – set of problems
Bump!
Ping.
This non-human BS machine may run on batteries!
It’s all smoke and mirrors with this guy. He truly has no clue what he is doing or even saying most of the time. It’s sound bite leadership...
and yet the morons lined up to vote for this clown...
Of course, there will be no electricity to power up those batteries now that hussein has declared war on coal powered utilities.
obama and his minions just don't understand that the success of our economy depends on a delicate balance between competing forces, and their actions have not just done things to tweak that balance in ways that will allow recovery, they have created economic tsunamis.
And here we are in the midst of many cost-expending activities: wars, natural disasters, etc., and the obama administration has ignored the need to plan for these recurring events by not setting money aside to deal with the unanticipated, but they keep spending all available funds and committing our reserves to costly entitlement and wealth-shifting activities.
It's been said many times here before, but 2012 can't come soon enougn - actually, January 20, 2013 is the critical date.
And all of its faulty thinking...
...an immature and incomplete worldview...
...the God-less arrogance and elitism...
...class warfare and collectivist confiscatory "redistribution" ideas... .... realy really really bad economic theories..
...COMPLETELY OUT OF BUSINESS!
Vote them out....
Kick them out...
Throw them out...
And don't let them come back!!
Obama IS a blunder.
The liberals, who tend to be anti-religious in general, have a religious zeal in their enviro-radical agenda.
Can we explain any of this to liberals? I’ve talked to some people who are so into the idea of electric cars. I’ve told them there are trade-offs, and that one big trade-off is that we would have to generate huge amounts of electricity in coal fired power plants if we had millions of electric cars on the roads. But these people don’t listen. They dream of a pollution free car, but don’t understand that generating the power to run the car produces these dreaded greenhouse gases.
They are child-like in their devotion to the green jobs, green energy and all that. Unfortunately some of these people are in our government making our official policies.
Remember, Citizens:
nobama hates you, hates your family, hates Free America, hates Americans, hates the Constitution and hates the Bill of Rights. nobama is a hate crime foisted upon America. nobama is the Destroyer.
Everything nobama does is intentional.
God help us all.
Fits perfectly with soundbite news.
Anybody who follows this idiot, is another idiot.
A battery has a positive side
“”Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol (gas) equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries,” according to the analysis.”
Electric cars don’t make energy. How can anyone writing or thinking about this fail to mention the energy consumed in making the....electricity?
re: Can we explain any of this to liberals?
I used to think is was possible. Simply present the truth and they will have to agree with it. I have finally come to the conclusion that maybe 5% of them are capable of seeing the obvious facts right before their eyes. They are so dedicated to their beliefs that facts don’t matter.
Excellent
Excellent article by Bob Beauprez.
He’s taken the time to actually study and bring together in one succinct article the many downsides of electric vehicles without the hype.
Sometime in the future electrics may be advantageous with new technology but that day is still far away.
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