“Despite the optimists telling us how well EVs are selling and that the charging and cost issues will be quickly resolved, the industry struggles. The math doesn’t work, and consumers are concluding hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) better meet their driving needs. Auto executives are wondering whether their betting on the EV transition, even with mandates, is putting them on the road to bankruptcy.”
“The math doesn’t work,” Mark Fields, former Ford Motor CEO, told Joe Kernen of CNBC early last week. Until the industry solves charging and cost issues, EV sales will continue to underperform. The bottom line for Fields is that “the government [Biden administration] will have to back off” its policies mandating two-thirds of new vehicle sales being EVs by 2030. Absent such an adjustment, emissions will worsen, and the EV transition will lag. …
Continue Reading[Ed. Note: Part I yesterday examined quotations on the primacy of energy for human betterment from friends of conventional energy. Today’s post adds respect from foes of oil, gas, and coal.
Free-market energy proponents gain the high ground when they stress the utilitarian nature of affordable, plentiful, reliable energy. Energy statists must play defense when their opponents stress the need to keep energy affordable for the less financially able and those billion-plus world citizens who do not have access to modern forms of energy.
… Continue ReadingIncreased energy affordability is not bad but good. Yet cheap energy is the enemy to the other side (although the Obama greens will not publicly admit it). Julian Simon noticed as much when he wrote The Cheaper the Energy the Better during the BTU tax debate in 1993:
Some people simply believe that it is ipso facto a good thing to use less energy and have less economic growth.
“Since 1970, implementation of the Clean Air Act and technological advances from American innovators have dramatically improved air quality in the U.S. Since that time, the combined emissions of criteria and precursor pollutants have dropped by 78%. Cleaner air provides important public health benefits, and we commend our state, local, community and industry partners for helping further long-term improvement in our air quality.” (- U.S. EPA, Our Nation’s Air: Trends through 2023)
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have never been considered a pollutant at ambient levels as have the criteria pollutants: Carbon Monoxide (CO); Lead (Pb); Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2); Particulate Matter (PM); and Sulfur Dioxide (SO2). With these real pollutants, the good continues to be good with more fossil fuel usage, less emissions. This is part of the increasing sustainability of fossil fuels, a multi-decade phenomenon with no end in sight.…
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