Posted on 06/04/2024 10:48:48 AM PDT by John Semmens
It is one thing to command that a nation or the world should shift to electric vehicles. A recent study from the University of Michigan found that to produce enough copper to electrify the global vehicle fleet, six new large copper mines would have to be dug each year for the next several decades. Professor Adam Simon, one of the authors of the study suggested that "building more hybrids is a better idea. They're less polluting and less costly than EVs."
In an interview with host Margaret Brenna on CBS's Face the Nation, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg asserted that "the huge quantities of copper and rare minerals that EV skeptics use to prove that our plan is infeasible assumes that the current trends of unnecessary travel by unimportant people would need to be sustained. They don't. There is no good reason why every family should have a car. What is so urgent about their activities that they can't use public transit? The convenience and mobility that Americans have enjoyed from automobile ownership is an expenditure that we can't justify."
"Right now gasoline stations are everywhere," Brenna pointed out. "EV charging stations are few and far between. What has the government done with the $7.5 billion of taxpayers' money allocated for setting up more EV charging stations? Why are charging stations so scarce?"
"Shifting an entire way of doing something as big and important as 'greening' our travel is inherently costly and time consuming," the Secretary said. "Unlike the private sector, government can't just implement a good idea without scads of meetings--meetings among the people responsible for implementing a plan, meetings with the general public and local government representatives. Then there are the regulations that must be crafted. Given how big and slowly the wheels of government move, I think it's remarkable that we've built any EV charging stations at this early stage. Perhaps by the end of President Biden's second term we might get the number of charging stations into the hundreds. Of course, this would require that Congress appropriate hundreds of billions more in funding. Those of us who understand how government works see the handful of charging stations thus far a good outcome for the measly $7.5 billion we've spent to-date."
Aside from the inefficiency of the government's crusade to impose EVs as the only mode of travel, there is the issue of safety. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine did a study that found pedestrians are more than twice as likely to be hit by an EV than by a gasoline fueled vehicle. The engine roar of gasoline-fueled vehicles is an extra warning of impending danger.
Buttigieg offered that "the reduction in noise pollution with EVs may be worth the higher number of injuries and fatalities rates they cause. In any case, the planned reduction in individually driven vehicles with a fully implemented EV transition should reduce the carnage in the long run."
In related news, the California Senate just passed a bill that will require all new cars sold in the state to have remote-controlled speed governors. Sen. Scott Wiener (D-SF) said "now that we have the technology to allow law-enforcement to directly limit the speed of every vehicle on the road we ought to use it. The days of allowing driver choice on how fast to drive can no longer be justified. In addition to the obvious safety gains there will also be the opportunity to immobilize the enemies of our democracy at the mere flick of a switch."
If you missed any of the other Semi-News/Semi-Satire posts you can find them at ...
https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,533207.0.html
In fact, there’s no reason for the unimportant people to be sustained.
Tell it to Biden. On the fifth day of his presidency, right after canceling the pipeline, he signed executive order to ban copper mine, just approved by pres Trump in Arizona Oak Flat. That mine holds the biggest coper deposits known to man.
Even most of the enviros agreed on the mining, but just few convinced Indian tribe about 50 miles away, that this is their sacred ground.
Mine is still on hold.
ICEs are more efficient than either.
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