The German constitutional court is forcing Green reality in Germany. In the US Biden hasn’t and won’t give up what has proven to be Green nonsense.
Green Fiscal Truth
Germany’s government is on the verge of collapse because it tried to hide the cost of its Green policy. The Wall Street Journal discusses the situation in Germany Faces the Green Fiscal Truth
The country’s highest constitutional court ruled this month that one of the coalition government’s main gimmicks for funding green projects violates Germany’s version of a balanced-budged amendment.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration had planned to devote €60 billion in emergency borrowing approved (but not spent) during the pandemic to subsidize green projects such as battery production and decarbonized steel. The point was to conceal the true cost of these plans by averting new legislative votes. The judges saw through this when they ruled that emergency authorization to borrow in the past can’t be re-purposed for entirely different projects in the future.
This fiscal moment of truth has exploded into a political crisis in Berlin. It’s becoming clearer that the unwieldy coalition of Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), the eco-leftist Greens and the free-market Free Democrats (FDP) of Finance Minister Christian Lindner can’t agree on any other method of funding green priorities.
Traffic Light Negotiations Collapse
The term “Traffic Light Coalition” is based on the colors of the party flags, red SPD, yellow FDP, and green Greens.
Negotiations have collapsed because the Greens will not give up untenable climate goals, and neither SPD nor FDP wants to increase taxes or cut other priorities.
Biden’s Expensive Fantasy
In the best takedown ever of Biden’s Green delusion, please consider The Biden Administration’s EV Goals Are an Expensive Fantasy
While EV proponents try to claim that EVs will soon be cheaper than gasoline vehicles, our new research demonstrates that EVs benefitted from hidden subsidies that total nearly $50,000 per EV.
Who is footing that bill? Gasoline vehicle owners, taxpayers, and utility ratepayers are.
For gasoline vehicles, the price you see at the gas pump covers the cost of extracting, refining, and transporting the gasoline, but the same cannot be said for the cost of charging an EV. EVs require new charging infrastructure, and their large power draw increases the strain on electricity infrastructure. As our research highlights, a typical EV charging overnight at home consumes as much power as several homes, and an EV charging at a fast-charging station in 30 minutes consumes as much power as a small to medium-sized grocery store. A few extra EVs in the neighborhoods are manageable, but widespread EV adoption will require significant and expensive grid upgrades.
President Biden’s expensive green pipe dream is not without irony.
While Biden administration claims that these draconian EV mandates are necessary to combat climate change, the widespread adoption of EVs in the developed world would have negligible effects on global emissions and climate. For starters, if EVs are able to displace all the carbon emissions from U.S. passenger cars, that would only cut out 20% of U.S. carbon emissions. Our calculations show that even if the U.S. eliminated all of its carbon emissions by 2050, the effect on global temperatures in 2100 would only be 0.08 degrees Celsius.
But EVs will not even get us that far because they don’t cut carbon emissions much—if at all—compared to gasoline vehicles. As pointed out by Mark Mills in a recent op-ed in Real Clear Energy, it is nearly impossible to measure an individual EV’s emissions. While driving an EV itself does not directly produce emissions, the emissions to generate the electricity used to charge EVs vary widely depending on location.
EV batteries also require fossil fuels to produce, and many components of EV batteries are made in emissions-heavy China. The emissions resulting from mining and processing the materials used in the battery are largely unreported, and the emissions during EV production could potentially be enough to wipe out the emissions saved by not combusting gasoline.
I have discussed many of these points before but the above article discusses them in details with links to studies.
Things are coming to a head in Germany, the EU in general, because they have debt brakes. The US has no spending constraints whatsoever.
To spend, the Eurozone governments have to raise taxes or prioritize where to spend money.
In the US, the inevitable result is Congress agrees to spend more on this in return for agreement to spend more on that. Typically its more money for military spending in return for more social spending.
The ridiculously name Inflation Reduction Act added additional spending for fantasy green energy goals.
Biden Wants You to Pay More and Get Less
Add it all up and the result is Nonstop Inflation: Biden Wants You to Pay More and Get Less
However, both political parties are to blame, Republicans are not at all interested in a compromise that would reduce spending across the board.
No One Will Fix This
“Compromise is always more spending for this in return for more spending on that.”
For discussion, please see Debt to GDP Alarm Bells Ring, Neither Party Will Solve This
“Neither party will fix the deficits. Neither party will do anything about mounting debt. No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.” Mish
Hey Mish, et,al,
You keep saying: “No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.” Mish” Below is an action plan that will unleash America’s
most power force. Lawyers who want more money.
We have been Gaslighted, now let’s Fix the problem at its source.
Social Security (SS) has been called the third rail of politics. The reason for this is that anyone who even discusses SS bankruptcy will get severely punished for bringing up a topic of such devastating potential. Any messenger foolish to deliver such a message will get destroyed. We are trapped on a sinking ship.
The annual SS Trustee report hints at a$22Trillion funding shortfall for SS and $23Trillion for Medicare. But these totals are buried in complex statistics. Even admitting it’s there would be political suicide for a public figure. But since I am a Boomer with an MBA and never plan to run for public office, I have nothing to lose and instead will blow the whistle on this ticking time bomb and the people that caused it and begin recover the money stolen from us boomers.
Things you should know but believe that they didn’t or couldn’t happen: To finance the War on Poverty Lyndon Johnson signed a bill into law that allowed the US Treasury to “barrow” from our Trust Funds, in any amount and at any time, for any reason. No timetable for repayment was required and no fixed interest rate was ever established.
The majority media supported this plan and didn’t blow the whistle on the fact that none of this barrowing has ever been paid back with real cash, just vague verbal promises. Some of this debt has been refinanced but never paid for. Replacing old verbal promises with new promises isn’t a repayment.
Bill Clinton’s Budget Surplus Hoax was constructed using this trick. He spent every dollar from the SS and Medicare trust funds and called it revenue not a debt owed to us boomers. Other large Trust Funds only had some of their money removed i.e., the Highway Construction Fund and the Airport Construction Fund. Note that the Treasury Dept. reports to this day that our last budget surplus was in 1957 when Eisenhower was president. Not when Cliton was in office. Obama then gave “America a Raise” and lowered SS tax rates for two years to camouflage the first shortfall of cash needed to pay SS benefits. That was ten plus years ago, and the democrats got away with it and still do. America has been gaslighted.
How should we correct this problem? The way Americans deal with all big expensive crimes these days. We need to sue the Democratic Party and their willing and necessary partners in this crime, the Majority Media. (They are nowhere near the mainstream and have given up their right to be part of the Fourth Estate.)
A class action suit by us baby boomers to recover the $3.5 Trillion in stolen cash that was replaced with worthless political promises is in order. This debt is included in our National Debt totals while simultaneously being reported by the SS and Medicare Admin as the money in their “Reserves”. Next time you see a trial lawyer’s ad that says you should call and find out if you have a case or no case, call and ask if he wants a slice of a $3.5 Trillion recovery suit. Even a small 1.0 % contingency fee would pay every partner in a 100 partner law firm $350 Million. There are over 50 million Boomers out there who would like to be on that jury and help get our money back. Please make the call.
Dave, Kenosha County, WI 11/18/23-582
I have owned an EV for 11 years, along with a Toyota RAV-4 gasser and a Ram 3500 diesel. Bought the EV out of curiosity when the manufacturer went bankrupt and liquidated the inventory at 70% off. I have used the EV ownership to understand EVs in use, and as an anchor to study all things electricity.
One result is that I that I satisfy no one. I was kicked out of EV cult sites years back for saying that EVs needed batteries at least 60 kWh to break out of their niche. (Now the typical battery is — voila! — about 60 kWh.) I am routinely lambasted on anti-EV cult sites for what I will say now, which is that EVs are viable urban commuter vehicles; will become more so as battery costs keep falling; if the solid state battery news is true, will entirely replace ICEVs by about 2050; do not require extensive changes to the grid.
I wrote that in reaction to this statement:
“a typical EV charging overnight at home consumes as much power as several homes, and an EV charging at a fast-charging station in 30 minutes consumes as much power as a small to medium-sized grocery store. A few extra EVs in the neighborhoods are manageable, but widespread EV adoption will require significant and expensive grid upgrades.”
Yes, there will be some expenses. It’s a big country. There are always differences. But that statement was outlandish. In any case, I am closely following the progress of solid state batteries with a mixture of hope, interest — and skepticism borne of repeated exposure to battery breakthroughs that didn’t happen.
In this case, however, Toyota is in on solid state, and so are some of the major Taiwanese battery makers. This tells me it’s real. How real, and how soon, are the questions. If what I’m seeing winds up coming true, the era of gasoline and diesel cars and trucks will end sometime around mid-century.
If solid state is another chimera, then EVs will dominate the cities but that’s all. You can shake your fist all you want, but this will happen. And no, I’m not even a Democrat, let alone a “progressive” or a “democratic socialist.” I don’t think they’re relevant, climate-wise; in fact, I don’t think human activity is changing the climate. Carbon dioxide is not a problem.
EVs are not a cause to me, they’re just cars. This is an engineering issue, nothing more. By the way, solve the energy density issue with solid state batteries, and everyone will learn that EVs offer a whole slew of advantages over ICEVs. That report from Texas is just as politically slanted as anything from the left-o-sphere.
I invite criticism, but make sure you know what you’re talking about rather than spouting bile and buzzwords. I have thoroughly researched all of this, both in practice with an EV and by means of data from the Departments of Energy and Transportation. The numbers I’ve given are rock-solid, and I’ve done them backwards and forwards several times over the years, including very recently as a final check.
Mish, if you want to go on an anti-alternative energy jihad, I strongly suggest that you look into the ongoing wind turbine fiasco rather than ranting against electric motive power. I have researched the turbine issues, and they are damning. I haven’t seen any evidence that those are being corrected, or even that they can be corrected.
On electric cars, there are upsides and some downsides, the latter mainly because the current generation of liquid electrolyte lithium-ion batteries lack sufficient energy density. If that’s corrected with solid state, it will be smooth sailing ahead.
There will be some broad implications to the adoption of EVs, a big one being that it will put a lot of car dealerships out of business. EVs need far less maintenance than ICEVs. They don’t need oil changes, transmission repairs, engine repairs, or exhaust system repair and replacement. Service revenues are the major profit centers for dealerships, and most of that will vanish. Not all of it, but most of it.
Electric motive power isn’t new. Between about 1938 and the mid-1950s, all of the steam trains were replaced by diesel-electric locomotives. The diesel engines function as generators that feed power to electric motors that turn the wheels. Those will persist even with solid state batteries. Semi-trucks are an open question; they are not practical with liquid electrolytes, and at this point I am not sure if solid state batteries will have enough energy density to replace diesel truck engines.
In light passenger vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickups) electric motive power offers many advantages, with the current gating factors being (in order) range, recharging times, and safety. If they materialize in commercial quantities with the usual manufacturing scale economies, solid state batteries will solve ALL of those problems.
Today, the liquid electrolyte batteries will power a car for 200 to 250 miles on a charge, with considerably less range in cold weather and when towing or hauling. Solid state offers at least a doubling, and probably a tripling, of that range. Again, IF they materialize, you will see the toughest markets open up.
Finally, to repeat something: Mish, do a deep dive in wind turbines. Have a look at Siemens-Gamesa, the world’s #2 manufacturer, and the gorilla of the North American market. We are already seeing the Nordic countries flocking to nuclear generation, and I expect to see a resurgence of it in the United States as the critical show-stoppers with those turbines become clearer.
Focus on the engineering issues, and you’ll be much better off.
If you don’t want others to spout “bile and buzzwords”, don’t accuse others of being on a “jihad”. A little humility and self-awareness goes a long way.
LOL.
Thank you for proving my point
You’re welcome. I am to please.
p.s.: “jihad” has a definition. You could look it up if you want. Would you have preferred “my struggle?” LOL
I have written about wind power at least a dozen times.
And I understand and have written EVs make sense for a subset of people, mostly those who live in big cities, with access to a their own charger, and who seldom venture far.
The problem is they are being forced on everyone too fast without an infrastructure or any clear understanding of where the minerals will come from or at what cost.
Maybe I missed your examination of wind power’s Achilles heel. It’s a very big problem, bigger than all of the rest combined. As someone who follows companies, industries, and stocks, if you haven’t mentioned it (hey, maybe I missed it) then you should.
I don’t think EVs should be forced on anyone either. I think the market will be enough in the next few years. That much said, I think the Texas report is laughably slanted and beneath your typical sourcing.
Infrastructure simply isn’t the show-stopper you think it is. There will be some issues, but not very many. You haven’t examined any of the benefits from these vehicles. One-sided stories are hardly ever accurate. I’m far from an EV cultist, but I am increasingly convinced that — based on the engineering and nothing else — that they are the future of personal transportation.
My view depends on the solid-state battery story panning out, but I think it’s going to. As I say, we do agree on forcing them, but I don’t think that will be necessary. Have you looked at the cost curve for liquid electrolytes? Last time I looked, the current generation will crack the $50/kWh level in the next couple years, and when that happens the cars will sell for the same price as ICEVs, without tax credits.
Look at the whole picture, and look at the future. As you know, businesses (and especially their valuations) are future-focused. You know, DCFs? I’ve had mental blocks too, as an investor. One of my worst was being negative on cellphone adoption, and another was when I thought Amazon was just another catalog merchant.
Save this conversation for a future point. The best investors will tell on themselves when they’re shown to have been wrong, and when it comes to EVs you will be shown to have been wrong about them.
As for the sourcing of lithium, get real. That’s an abundant material. Even a cursory examination shows it. Same goes for the so-called rare earth minerals. No show stoppers there.
Incidentally, the only access someone needs is to a 240v/30A circuit, same as what’s used for a clothes dryer. In the worst case, someone could spend $250 or so for a splitter, an extension cord, and a charging cable.
I recently checked all of that on Amazon when someone claimed they needed a $2,500+ “home charging station” for an EV.
Those “home charging stations” are the EV equivalent of the clear cost add-on that the crooked car dealer tried to foist on a customer in the “Fargo” movie.
Any new technology offers opportunities to the newest generation of P.T. Barnum’s. LOL
A tidbit on the EV maintenance side.
EVs use “traction” batteries, which slow the vehicle as they regenerate electricity on the downhill and in otherwise slowing down. Regeneration is trivial in terms of adding range, but not at all trivial in another respect: brakes.
EVs are famous for “one pedal driving,” i.e. far less need to hit the brakes in most driving. This is similar to the use of an exhaust brake in a diesel vehicle. My EV has never needed a brake job, nor has my diesel pickup which is now at 107,000 miles in 10 years of ownership.
The heaters in EVs are much better than in ICEVs. No need to warm them up. Oh, and solid state batteries operate smoothly at a significantly wider temperature range than liquid electrolyte batteries, which will solve the issue of battery damage and performance in very hot and very cold ambient temperatures.
Also, while liquid electrolyte batteries degrade after about 1,000 charging cycles, solid state batteries are said to last for 5,000 to 6,000 cycles. Thus, if (give it about 15 years) they offer a range between charges of 500 miles, a solid state battery will offer lifetime ranges measured in the millions of miles.
Now, I am VERY aware that I am forecasting here. I have seen all manner of hype about new battery chemistry and had approached solid state with much skepticism. But that’s diminishing as I see the big players — especially Toyota and the Taiwanese — embrace the technology. If what I am increasingly inclined to believe does come true, those who s*** on EVs will look like Luddite fools in the not-too-distant future.
You can thank us bond vigilantes for crushing the green revolution by demanding real interest rates, with more, more real rates coming as the US debt refundings fail.
The big issue for wind is engineering. The problem has gotten NO attention in the mainstream media, but it has killed Siemens shares this year (finally) and some Chinese manufacturers.
I will give you a hint, with apologies to “The Graduate”: bearings.
Aren’t there also issues with blade integrity/performance declining more than expected (or hoped for?)? All in all they are not delivering close to what was promised.
Butterfly wing-flapping is also a subject that isn’t getting any media attention:
link to frontiersin.org
I’ve been of the mind, over the past 10 years or so, that the federal debt would be inflated away, or to the point of manageability, but now I lean more towards a hard default in the 2030’s, concurrent with a collapse in the government entirely.
“Neither party will fix the deficits. Neither party will do anything about mounting debt. No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.” Mish
I must disagree with your premise Mish. In the past couple decades, many would agree there has been nary an attempt at fixing the deficits. I would have to say one recent attempt, started in 2017 and was swallowed up from getting much off of the ground to start. As time went on and things were moved out of the way, it started getting better. I would say much was done to curb deficit spending, and despite others wishes perhaps, but much still got done. This proves it can be done, and was attempted to be done, by One Party anyway.
Mounting debt is another issue, and tied specifically to deficit reductions and fixing, if you will, the overall deficits. I argue another strong attempt, better orchestrated, and with the right people in places of power were needed, and specifically when needed. In other words (Good-Bye Mitch) can and would get the Job Done!
The “Political System” is Not Broken as you state IMO, although it must feel that way to the Masses at times… Ask yourself these questions and you will see what I mean. Does the SJC still work? Can you still speak Freely? Can you still buy and own a Gun, Home, ICE Car? Do you have clean running water, electricity, instant communication anywhere? Are you Free to travel Etc. Does that sound and feel like a “Broken Political System” to you?
It has simply been high jacked and they were softly and slowly pushing here noses under the tent. As time has marched along, they have been semi successful at breaking things like Law & Order by lazing penalties, Voting Integrity by Digital and Absentee Balloting, and more, but things like these are fixable, and thereby not broken yet, or until, nobody is willing or able to fix things. That has yet proven to be successful so far in our Country, and with many attempts through the decades and decades of our existence.
I strongly urge You to reconsider Your negative stance, and demeanor, and try moving forward with a more positive approach. You used to be more aggressive with the fight to fix things, and not this roll over and give up BS…
What Gives?
It depends by what you mean by “broken”. Can a conservative speak freely in the liberal ‘elite’ campuses? SC Justices get shouted down by woke activists! Can you buy a house? Yes, if you’re wealthy, but the average person? Men claiming to be women winning in women’s sports and being cheered on by ‘feminists’, 12 yr old kids can decide to change their bodies irreversibly without parental consent, but they can’t legally buy a beer, rampant robbery due to no law enforcement in the blue cities causing department stores to shut down, highly selective prosecution by the DOJ depending on party affiliation, who you are or whose son you are… your statement “but …things are fixable…therefore not broken yet” is hilarious. You only fix things that are broken. Heard the aphorism, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?
“high jacked”? “lazing”? really?!
I imagine the people on the Titanic being as optimistic as you are presently after hitting the iceberg – the engines were running, the lights were on, the bar was open and the band was playing.
The Republicans want to rebuild the military. We already spend 2 trillion/year, maybe that would cost two trill?
You might want to spend just a little time fact checking the Texas policy foundation’s “research”. It’s bullshit.
Name-calling with no substantive counter-argument. Typical left-wing response…
so why are you doing it too?
The Texas report is highly one-sided. Those of us who have followed this area know it. That report is no more reliable to me than the junk emanating from the IPCC. Intense skepticism is fully justified.
One more here of keen interest for more reality!
ttps://robertbryce.substack.com/p/bone-chilling?
Humans these days are totally devoid of any ability for critical thinking, but dedicated to short term delusions, as is perfectly described in this EXCELLENT article.
The “Green New Deal’ delusional HOAX appears to be bought in total by the ignorant brain dead Demented Fool illegally installed as POTUS. A video of him running up to a crowd at a rally and screeching “Look in my eyes, I swear to you I shall eliminate hydrocarbons”. So the Air Force One 747 jet is going to run on windmills and solar panels?
The global Warming / Climate change HOAX is just an excuse for governments and needy institutions like the UN to raise cash from the delusional fools to do the impossible, CHANGE THE WEATHER.
The UN recruited and trained the poor teenager, Greta, to be the spokesperson for giving money to change the weather. When the UN had a conference in Scotland to address the climate change HOAX with their star sweet Great front and centre there were 400 private jets showing up carrying all the rich folks. I did not know Bloomberg, the owner of numerous jets and fleets of cars, was pushing this stupidity. Like Bill Gates, having great wealth does NOT create great wisdom and common sense.
Our society revolves on responding to the crisis government creates. Government will start wars to slaughter our and whoever peoples and then subsidise the disaster they created.
Famous line from Madeline Albright when asked on camera by a 60 minutes lady, “What is your opinion about the 500,000 children we slaughtered in Iraq?”
Her Reply was: “It was unfortunate but necessary”, or words to that effect, which she later sorta disavowed when pressed.
Correct. You are devoid of any ability for critical thinking and dedicated to delusions.
EXCELLENT work again some more Sir! Further to…
Global Warming / Climate change was started by Al Gore on the HOAX that it is caused by C02, an absolute necessity for all plant life.
Now, as then, an excuse to raise taxes to change the weather to fight the non existent problem! See the first comment in here!
link to straightlinelogic.com
“MEN, IT HAS BEEN WELL SAID, THINK IN HERDS; IT WILL BE SEEN THAT THEY GO MAD IN HERDS, WHILE THEY ONLY RECOVER THEIR SENSES SLOWLY, ONE BY ONE.”
CHARLES MACKAY, Excerpt from book, “EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS” — 160 years ago in 1841
Lol! Do you think that anyone is saying to get rid of ALL CO2 in the atmosphere?
Without CO2 in the atmosphere, the earth would be a ball of ice with an average temperature of -18C. No one is that f*cking stupid to want that.
Lol again! Al Gore!
Nope. Not even close.
The first person to identify global warming from an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere was Eunice Foote in 1856. This was followed by John Tyndall in 1861. Svante Arrhenius in 1896. And on and on.
Since then, there have been over 88,000 peer reviewed scientific papers on the topic.
You should try reading some of them instead of believing the garbage that you are peddling.
Yes but those papers also accommodate a range of other contributing factors, and don’t religiously push one narrative, as you would expect in a non-politicised scientific community. So, yes, I think both you are idiots – just different flavours of idiot.
Lol! How about you show me those papers with their other contributing factors? I’m guessing you won’t, because you can’t.
So how about you just tell me what those other contributing factors are? And some scientific proof to go along with it?
It will be fun!
EVs are a wealthy mans feel good experiment. Unless Chineese EVs are allowed into the US markets and the EV infrastructure is built out, the common man will not posses an EV for cost and logistic reasons.
I get 38 MPG highway and 29 in town with an internal combustion. Explain to me why I need an EV that uses as much petroleum to produce as an internal combustion auto?
I am just not feeling it yet.
It would be interesting to compare total supply chains and their energy budgets for both, in fact, not just for both, but also for hydrogen fuel cells, ammonia, methonol, and various forms of hybrid, to get a more informative picture of relative economic utility of each.
Hydrogen as vehicle fuel will be a non-starter. Too many problems in shipping, storage, and use. CNG (methanol) lacks range and torque. Hybrids will be a passing thing, if the solid-state battery story works out.
You will want an EV because it will be a superior vehicle. It will cost no more than an ICEV; it will need a lot less maintenance; its driving performance will be better; and its range (if the solid state battery story works out) will be at least as good, and probably better.
It will recharge just as quickly as an ICEV, and unless you’re on a long road trip you’ll be able to do that at home. If you care about CO2 (I don’t), in use it will emit about half as much per mile driven as an ICEV does, at the U.S. national generation mix.
I see no reason to swap out a working ICEV for an EV, but the day is approaching when you’ll want your next car to be an EV. If you use it as an urban commuter vehicle only, that day will be here before the end of this decade. If you need something for longer trips or use as a heavy-duty work vehicle or RV hauler, that will probably happen by 2040, which is only 16 years from now.
If I were advising someone who looks at them as cars and not causes or threats, I’d tell them to wait for about 3 years — the ’28 model year, probably — if it’s an urban-only vehicle, and the late ’30s if it’s a heavy-duty pickup or a car that will be used for long trips.
Greta and company coming out as Hamas supporters split the Green movement into the total crazies and the partial crazies so the movement has lost a lot of steam. The debt brakes are certainly good for the Euro. Glad that France did a 180 and decided to go back to almost all nuclear. If Putin is counting on Europeans freezing through lack of energy he is very much mistaken again.
Your last sentence doesn’t make any sense – it was European governments that officially stopped buying energy from Russia, and not the other way round; then of course, they allowed Russian energy to go through third party countries and thence into Europe via places like Italy anyway, after scrapping nuclear power, because they’re hypocrites and liars. The same can be said for the Greens who have exposed their true colours. Euro is long-term trending down over the past decade, and the EU has a debt & immigration crisis.
Sure it makes sense, not to Putin lovers of course but to everyone else. Europe found alternate suppliers. What is funny is that Russia had to sell their oil at a good discount to India and China who then sold some back to Europe with a markup. India and China captured a nice slice of the profits that in normal times Russia would have enjoyed.
For the Euro, it seems to me that the US also has problems with debt and immigration so that doesn’t explain the weakness. The Euro is rebounding from the hit it took when Putin invaded Ukraine and has a way to go.
Humanity is addicted to economic growth and a desire to improve individual living standards. Which requires MORE energy consumption every year.
The world has been attempting to meet this annual increase in energy demand by building out $5 trillion of renewable energy installations over the last few decades. Although this has displaced the use of some fossil fuels, it has been far from adequate as the world continues to use MORE fossil fuels every year. It is estimated that we need to spend over $5 trillion PER YEAR on renewables to actually begin to reduce our use of fossil fuels. And that does not count the amount needed to expand and improve our electrical grids, storage, and other electrical infrastructure. It is highly unlikely that we will be able to accomplish this transition to 100% renewables during this century.
Then there are EVs. I find the whole EV thing a big distraction. While the use of EVs will slowly reduce the use of ICE vehicles, which will slowly reduce emissions, it is going to take many decades to replace the 1.5 billion ICE vehicles on the road today. EV sales in 2023 will be 12 million and ICE vehicle sales will be 70 million. It will take at least a decade for EV sales to match ICE sales and another decade to get close to 100% EV sales. And then 2 more decades to be able to replace all the ICE vehicles and be fully EV. And that is being optimistic. Road transportation today is responsible for just 14% of our total emissions. Assuming that 40 years from now we are able to charge them all with renewable energy, that will reduce total emissions by 14%. That’s a heck of an effort to reduce emissions by such a small amount.
The net result will be that we will not be able to reduce total emissions by very much this century. Global warming is going to get a lot worse over the next few decades.
The net result is that EVs will not replace ICE, because there are better technologies than current large electrochemical metallic battery-powered cars that require prohibitively expensive upgrades of national power grids. Hydrogen fuel cells are more likely to replace ICE than EVs because they don’t require the same huge quantities of metal to make them work.
Total emissions will decline because China’s population is declining, and most of the polluting factories that build things like EVs, and solar panels, and wind turbine parts, and the junk you buy on Amazon for Christmas, are manufactured in China’s polluting factories where western pollution and labour laws don’t apply. Places like India and Vietnam don’t have the same levels of command economy factory and export supply chain infrastructure as China, so their pollution is more to do with sanitation and human refuse, rather than Carbon – unless you count India’s toilet problem as carbon.
Thank you for your response. All good points worth considering.
You said:
“The net result is that EVs will not replace ICE, because there are better technologies than current large electrochemical metallic battery-powered cars that require prohibitively expensive upgrades of national power grids. Hydrogen fuel cells are more likely to replace ICE than EVs because they don’t require the same huge quantities of metal to make them work.”
First: Better technology does not guarantee success. We have had both EVs and H2 Fuel Cell vehicles for many many decades. Neither technology has been able to stop the ever-growing number of ICE vehicles in the world (or the US) so far. That’s because once ICE vehicles began their dominance of the roads, our entire infrastructure was built up around them. To successfully replace ICE requires a completely new infrastructure.
Second: EVs are currently the preferred alternative. What stands in their way, as you stated, is the infrastructure needed to allow them to become as dominant as ICE. But a lot of money and effort is going into this. And auto manufacturers are on board. If they can produce and sell enough EVs they can reach numbers where the infrastructure build-out will accelerate.
Third: Hydrogen Fuel Cells have been unable to gain traction for 50 years now. There are currently 250 million ICE vehicles on US roads, 2.5 million EVs and only 15,000 fuel cell vehicles. There is no infrastructure in place for fuel cells. And as resources go into expanding the infrastructure for the growing number of EVs, it will become more difficult to justify coming up with the resources to build out a third type of infrastructure for hydrogen vehicles.
I’m not saying it can’t happen, but the odds are not good. No matter how good the technology might be.
You said:
“ Total emissions will decline because China’s population is declining, and most of the polluting factories that build things like EVs, and solar panels, and wind turbine parts, and the junk you buy on Amazon for Christmas, are manufactured in China’s polluting factories where western pollution and labour laws don’t apply. Places like India and Vietnam don’t have the same levels of command economy factory and export supply chain infrastructure as China, so their pollution is more to do with sanitation and human refuse, rather than Carbon – unless you count India’s toilet problem as carbon.”
True about China eventually, though their emissions are still increasing right now. But world population is still increasing and will continue to increase for several more decades at the least. And all those people want more energy. And since we are not meeting those increasing energy needs with renewables, it will require MORE fossil fuels and thus more emissions.
If the solid-state battery story works out, it will take about 40 years to replace the ICEVs, but they’ll be in sharp decline within about 20 years, and even faster in the urban West.
To make a fair comparison, how much have car and oil companies gotten in tax breaks and writeoffs for decades. The oil and gas companies continue to rake in profits and keep raising prices without increasing capacity. But they seem to be a bit scared as prices have cratered by 25% over the last month at the pump. I see Biden in win-win now that polling numbers are cratering. I expect Trump to have all kinds of health problems by next summer compared to Biden. The Republicans would be wise to pick Nikki Haley as their nominee and not allow Trump due to his many legal entanglements. Haley would pull more voters from the center. But it’s not going to happen because Trump has control of the party apparatus, which is not talked about anywhere. 30% of Republican voters still want to overthrow the government and have the civilian militias in charge like a banana republic.
Nicki seriously? Another war monger bought and paid for by the MIC
America is already a banana republic, the government was already overthrown a while ago. It seems likely that there are many deranged people who will take steps to ensure that Trump has a “health problem”, as long as they can see that every attack on “democracy” that comes from the democrat regime just results in the electorate rejecting the democrat regime even more. It’s likely that it’s not Trump that people want, just an end to the democrat regime and the embedded civil service that supports them.
The sad fact is the author is off the rails about climate and EVs. Gas cars are horribly inefficient compared to EVS. EVs are easily 4 times more efficient than their ice counterparts. This makes it easier to replace needing only 1/4 the energy of fossil fuels. ICE is basically dead in the water.
And where are we getting the extra electricity to charge millions of extra medium sized grocery stores every night?
Tell you what, next time there is a blackout you live somewhere that refuses to use fossil fuels and rely on wind and solar.
Free tip: dont choose an urban area.
We use fossil fuels to generate electricity so EVs don’t need wind and solar. EV adoption and renewables are two different things although most people lump them together.
They lump them together, because politicians lump them together, and spend a lot of taxpayers money pushing them together. Engineers benefit greatly from all the extra work producing “green energy” stuff that doesn’t really do what it pretends to.
The whole purpose of EV’s, ostensibly, is that they dont run on gas/fossil fuels ergo they dont contribute to Global Warming.
But if the electricity used to charge the EV battery is generated by fossil fuels then the EV DOES contribute to global warming as well.
“ ICE is basically dead in the water.”
How long will it take to replace 1.5 billion ICE vehicles? Given 2023 sales of 12 million EVs and 70 million ICE.
Well Stalin managed something similar with tractors, and Mao too, probably.
Not yet, Green-Man.
Geez! Do you sell EVs for a living or something?
EVs may be 4x more efficient in city traffic, not on the highway.
If you were an engineer, and if you were honest, you would know that the specific local efficiency of energy conversion into torque is so selective that it eliminates the entire oil-dependent supply chain and EV subsidies that render EVs much less efficient in the bigger picture. Never mind the gross inefficiency that EVs have, of needing enormous amounts of metal to be put in and on the ground to ensure the power grid and transformers can cope with the constant demand that millions of EVs would put on the power grid 24/7/356 – the metal in the wires would never be able to cool, and well, you don’t understand the implications of that, because you’re not an engineer.
EVs are about 47% efficient, roughly twice as efficient as most gassers; 20% more so than the newest gassers; 50% more than diesel light vehicles.
This is considering the U.S. electricity mix and the thermal efficiency of each method.
It’s Biden’s handlers who are holding onto green energy programs because they want to squeeze every dollar out of the US taxpayer before the 2024 election.
Germany with a dwindling share of global population will spare no effort to destroy herself in the name of climate change. At least that’s the Green mantra.
At the same time, they would welcome unlimited influx of migrants to more than replace the local population.
Did Soros start his evil deeds by screening out the low end of the gene pool to fulfill his ends?
$Trillions for open borders, $Trillions for stupid wars, $Trillions for green fantasy projects. How do we get such bad leaders? It’s not like there cluelessness isn’t blantantly obvious. Chalk it up to “Our Precious Democracy”, a full blow kakistocracy.
I love the notion of electric vehicles for those who it make sense to have one. Unfortunately, that means very few people. IF you do not have a home with a charging bay, you are an idiot if you buy an electrical-only vehicle. And I means STUPID. The electricity rates at these charging station are far higher than home rates and you cannot use home solar to charge from a tesla herd charging spot. I rented a model 3 in Austin a few months back because they were the lowest cost rental. Gee, I wonder why. Because hotels do not have charging bays and you have to charge these every 3 days like it or not, especially if you run their security mode overnight. I’ve never had to fill up a rental car more than once each 1.5-2 weeks. Charging is the big issue here for city dwellers.
Like anything else, they are good for some but not for others as ONE GOVERNMENT MANDATED SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. F the government and F authoritarian Joke Biden.
BTW, I observed some few years ago that if Germany can’t decide on a government to rule them from Berlin, perhaps they should “bust the union”, like the Soviet Socialist Republics did in 1991, and let the states go independent or form new union(s), likely plural.
Laugh now, but that is EXACTLY what is going to happen to the USSA.
“No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.”
And yet, the illiterate indoctrinati keeps mindlessly believing that “the syyyyystem colaaaaaapsing” is some sort of bad thing. Rather than the pure and undifferentiated blessing it really would be. The more completely it collapses, the better. In all possible ways.
lol, the price at the pump reflects the true cost of the oil? The DOD might beg to differ.
@Walt. Maybe the price at the pump reflects the true cost of the oil. To be counted up by accountants. But the price also adds in several taxes, to finance the building of roads, plus cross-subsidies to operate mass transit, and even subsidize the use of EVs.
Expect those extra costs to increase, because the people politically in charge now prefer that people get around some other way, or maybe not get around at all and stay home, walk or bicycle everywhere that they need.
49 cents a gallon state gas tax, 18 cents federal gas tax, and the Governor’s (and Seattle’s) 50 cents a gallon carbon cap and trade tax add up pretty quickly here in Washington.
Walt, The wars in the Middle East weren’t for oil. That should be obvious. Before the wars they were selling us oil and after the war they were selling US oil.
The wars were for Israel where the neocons implemented Richard Perle’s “Clean Break Plan” using US blood and treasure.
link to original.antiwar.com
It’s a bit more than that… Israel cuts Arabia from Africa, and spans the Mediterranean (Atlantic Ocean) to the Red Sea (Indian Ocean). It’s bad enough that so many toxic states control oil, but controlling trade is a big no-no.