Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; Libertarians rejoice! Thanks to President Biden’s latest climate brainstorm, in the future the US Federal Government will only function within 200 miles of the nearest operational EV charging station, and only when a fully charged EV is available in the car pool.
From the Biden White House;
…
Leverage the Federal Government’s Footprint and Buying Power to Lead by Example
- Consistent with the goals of the President’s Build Back Better jobs and economic recovery plan, of which his clean energy jobs plan is a central pillar, the order directs the federal agencies to procure carbon pollution-free electricity and clean, zero-emission vehicles to create good-paying, union jobs and stimulate clean energy industries.
- In addition, the order requires those purchases be Made in America, following President Biden’s Buy American executive order. The order also directs agencies to apply and strictly enforce the prevailing wage and benefit guidelines of the Davis Bacon and other acts and encourage Project Labor Agreements. These actions reaffirm that agencies should work to ensure that any jobs created with funds to address the climate crisis are good jobs with a choice to join a union.
- The order directs each federal agency to develop a plan to increase the resilience of its facilities and operations to the impacts of climate change and directs relevant agencies to report on ways to expand and improve climate forecast capabilities – helping facilitate public access to climate related information and assisting governments, communities, and businesses in preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
- The order directs the Secretary of the Interior to pause on entering into new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or offshore waters to the extent possible, launch a rigorous review of all existing leasing and permitting practices related to fossil fuel development on public lands and waters, and identify steps that can be taken to double renewable energy production from offshore wind by 2030. The order does not restrict energy activities on lands that the United States holds in trust for Tribes. The Secretary of the Interior will continue to consult with Tribes regarding the development and management of renewable and conventional energy resources, in conformance with the U.S. government’s trust responsibilities.
- The order directs federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies as consistent with applicable law and identify new opportunities to spur innovation, commercialization, and deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure.
…
Of course, it may take some time to completely replace the government vehicle fleet, and I suspect government employees working in remote regions will try to cling on to their gasoline and diesel vehicles, so the process of Federal withdrawal from unpowered regions may take a long time.
Just been sent a video of a Chinese Navy ‘shopwindow’. I’m a little out of date but everything was real cutting edge stuff. Lots of vertical launch missiles, carrier deck operations, huge ballistic missile submarine, attack ditto, very tweaky radar antennae , Phalanx type anti missile gun, all the lads v smart, ultra-disciplined saluting, all escorts ultramodern anti reflective shapes. None driven by electricity that I could see.
When China invades Taiwan, what should we do?
China’s biggest weakness is nobody can tell the boss they made a mistake. When they invade Taiwan, it won’t got smoothly.
Since Taiwan has had 71 years to prepare for such an invasion- I’d think the invasion would be near impossible.
The ChiComs will not play nice if it comes down to cases, and screw international opinion. Only the US would have been willing to make it a bad day for any invasion, but that’s done now. It will be all “tut, tut” and crocodile tears from the EU and the Demonrats. Mass has a quality all its own, and they will throw enough bodies into an invasion that the Taiwanese will eventually run out of bullets.
They won’t land on Taiwan until it runs out of Taiwanese bodies.
Don’t be naive. China will *destroy* Taiwan before it lets it become independent. And Taiwan simply doesn’t have any way to stop that from happening.
Of course Taiwan can’t stop a full scale invasion. But look how difficult it was for America to invade islands held by the Japanese in WWII- when they were dug in. I should think Taiwan by now should have a vast number of anti aircraft and anti ship missles- to make such an invasion very difficult and expensive. Making it expensive is a good way to discourage it. And of course Taiwan won’t declare independance- it’ll continue with its existing policy of pretending to be part of “one China” while actually being independent. It was also be expensive to China in terms of world affairs. So, China will continue with the game too. Ergo, no invasion, Mr. Naive only looking at the superficial facts.
“I should think Taiwan by now should have a vast number of anti aircraft and anti ship missles- to make such an invasion very difficult and expensive.”
Thinking it doesn’t make it so.
I don’t think the Chicoms care *now* about what the rest of the world thinks. I think they believe their own propaganda, that they are the rising power in the world and they are acting like it. They may be assuming too much. Humans have a bad habit of doing that.
The Chicoms obviously care very little for human life. How many millions have they killed with their deliberate release of the Wuhan virus on the world. That’s about as cold-blooded as you can get.
I will note that the Chicoms attacked the Vietnamese back in the 1980’s, in an effort to steal some of Vietnam’s land along their mutual border, and the Vietnamese military “bloodied the Chinese military’s nose” as it was put at the time. And the Chinese backed off. Of course, the Chicoms have new leadership now, and a new arrogance (or maybe an old arrogance resurfacing) so things are different.
Yes, the Chicoms were afraid of Trump and they are not afraid of Biden. I can’t imagine that they don’t have compromising information on Biden. That’s what they are paying his son, Hunter for. So *any* decision on China made by Biden has to be suspect and questioned. He may not have freedom of action.
An invasion of Taiwan would be very costly to the Chinese military. So many things could go wrong on all sides.
The Status Quo is best. There is no need for an attack on Taiwan. Only a mentally deranged leader would initiate such an attack now.
Xi threatens attacks. He should leave it at that.
I don’t think China needs to invade Taiwan. As soon as China proves that they are the dominant power in the Asia Pacific region it will have de facto control – it’s a little like guerrilla warfare at sea. The only thing preventing that atm is US + allied ships – if things go according to the Biden plan it won’t be long before China has control of the region without having to work for it.
From UK Daily Mail
Joe Biden freezes billions of dollars of arms sales to the Middle East including F-35s to the UAE and smart bombs for Saudi Arabia
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9194497/Biden-administration-temporarily-holds-U-S-weapons-exports-official.html
And here I thought Biden said he would re-establish good foreign relations that Trump ruined. Just wait, Biden is going to get us re-involved in requiring a military presence in the ME>
Lie after lie after lie. And they called Trump a liar.
This is part of Obama’s foreign policy of favoring the Mad Mullahs of Iran. Those F-35’s were aimed at the Mad Mullahs.
Simple solution: Install nuclear generators in all vehicles…fission even. Run a contest. Use thorium. Use wireless recharging. Use anti-gravity to reduce fiction.
Just imagine all the Universities working 24/7 on this along with using all the fired pipeline workers as construction energy PhD candidates.
The R&D alone will require trillions and trillions.
Perfect.
The New World Anthem
Aviation, too, maybe? Well, then, why not just go back to using gliders like the Army did during WWII? Got a lot done with a very, very low fuel cost for the tow to get the gliders airborne.
No, not aviation.
When the refineries close for lack of demand where is aviation going to get its fuel? The large refineries can’t stay profitable on only airlines demand.
Refineries will be around for a long time; some will close down if the US transitions more over to non-petroleum based fuels (although the USG automobile fleet will put only a tiny dent in that consumption). Given that scenario, where some refineries will remain open, there is no reason they shouldn’t remain profitable. Not to mention that there are other petroleum products produced by refineries besides gasoline. (BTW, jets run on kerosene, not gasoline, although piston planes do use high-grade gasoline.)
What makes you think *any* of them will be around for a long time? They have to make a profit on an enormous capital investment! Their biggest demand is for gasoline and heating fuel. Take away most of their demand and they will all go out of business. And that is what Ol’ Joe is saying he will cause to happen by 2035.
You can’t just blow up 2/3rds of a refinery in order to cut capital investment, they don’t work that way!
As I’ve already pointed out and you have apparently ignored, existing refineries simply won’t be able to live on making jet fuel for the airlines.
You have some really simplistic ideas of how economics work. You can’t just throw away capital investment without serious repercussions. Throw away enough to impact the capital associated with each stock share and pretty soon your stock will be worth nothing, your debt will be called, and you’ll wind up in bankruptcy.
It’s not even obvious that you know how plastics (ethylene and propylene) are made. These are created in high temperature furnaces. Do you think those high temp furnaces run off electricity? If Biden kills off fossil fuel production then where is the heating fuel for the cracking furnaces going to come from?
Our whole economy is directly tied to fossil fuel in one way or another. Kill fossil fuels by 2035 and you’ve affected the economy from the top to the bottom. Want plastic pipe to plumb an addition to your house? Kill fossil fuels and you’ll have to go back to expensive copper pipe! Want a light weight replacement quarter panel for your hot rod? Sorry, you’ll have to go back to using expensive steel panels. You want something other than a cotton shirt? Too bad, learn to live with it.
Blowing up 2/3 of a refinery…why on earth do you bring that up? There are 135 petroleum refineries in the US today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States), which clearly means that we could reduce production to in the neighborhood of 1/135 of current production without needing to have partial refineries. (Those refineries aren’t all the same size, so there’s plenty of room in that number for…refinement, pardon the pun. And no, I don’t think 1/135 is the right number, I’m just saying that some fraction of current production is quite possible, without subdividing any existing refineries.)
No, I did not respond to your claim that existing refineries couldn’t “live” by just making jet fuel. But since you insist: 1) No, not all 135 refineries would survive on making jet fuel. But as I explained in the paragraph above, there’s no reason they *should* all survive. 2) There are plenty of petroleum products other than jet fuel which the remaining refineries could produce for a profit, see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Major_products.
Finally, re your question about “If Biden kills off fossil fuel production”: I said nothing about killing off fossil fuels. Biden may have, I’m not sure, but that’s a different question. I have only been talking about gasoline vs. electric cars, and really only about the Federal fleet of cars. (Well, I responded to a couple other posts here…) I agree that there are other uses for petroleum, besides making gasoline, and that it would be difficult to come up with alternatives for those; so petroleum and (some) refineries are likely to be around for a long time. So please stop putting words in my mouth.
BTW, re copper pipe: I’ve been looking at real estate in another state, and often they’ll refer to having replaced the “poly” (I assume they mean PVC) pipe with something else–presumably because of problems (leaks?) with the poly. Indeed, I had to replace a leaking PVC fitting in my house awhile back. Maybe we really should go back to Cu. But don’t quote me…
“Blowing up 2/3 of a refinery…why on earth do you bring that up? There are 135 petroleum refineries in the US today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States), which clearly means that we could reduce production to in the neighborhood of 1/135 of current production without needing to have partial refineries.”
Do you EVER stop to think about what you are saying? We *already* suffer shortages when just a couple of those 135 refineries have to be shutdown for things like hurricanes, fires, etc!
In addition, many of those refineries put out different fuel mixes for different states and different seasons. Many refineries put out 10 to 15 different fuel blends at any one time and need up to 20 different hydrocarbon feed stocks to generate those blends. One or two refineries couldn’t do that!
Any refinery that losses 80% of their market, which is not unreasonable based on Biden’s policies, *will* go under. No refinery will be able to remain in operation based on a depleted demand based on airline fuel and a much smaller plastics demand.
You can dream otherwise all you want, that’s your prerogative, but dreams not based in reality are not survival strategies.
“1) No, not all 135 refineries would survive on making jet fuel. But as I explained in the paragraph above, there’s no reason they *should* all survive.”
So you would bet airline survival on a few refineries being able to operate 24/7/365 without ever suffering from severe weather or accidental fires?
“2) There are plenty of petroleum products other than jet fuel which the remaining refineries could produce for a profit, see for example”
The remaining petroleum products represent 20% or less of the total market for refineries today. How will *any* refineries remain profitable on such a small output?
“I have only been talking about gasoline”
And as I told you the transportation market is over 66% of the refineries output today. If you take away 2/3rds of the market from refineries then a generous guess would be that 2/3rds of the 135 refineries you mention would go out of business leaving only 45 refineries in the US to handle our total needs. We suffer when only one or two refineries are down, that’s less than 2% of the refineries. You are now expecting 5% of the refineries being down to not cause any major disruptions in the operation of the US economy. If you can’t see that is an unreasonable expectation then you simply aren’t living in reality
If you have leaking plastic plumbing it’s probably because someone used PVC instead of CPVC. It’s a common mistake but should never be made by a professional plumber. If it was done by a professional then they should be contacted and not-so-subtly asked to fix the problem they caused!
don’t bring economics into the discussion of issues that affect the entire economy. you will only confuse things.
BTW, back in the early 2000s, I drove through southern Philadelphia every weekday, where there are lots of refineries and storage tanks for petroleum products. They stank (in the literal sense), and I’m guessing they still do. The more such stinking refineries we can get rid of, the better breathing air will be for the people who live nearby.
I grew up in a Chicago suburb, and still remember driving through Gary Indiana in the hay day of steel mills: they sky was dark from the smoke, and we held our noses (ok, figuratively). I drove back through there after (most?) steel mills shut down, and it was a much more pleasant place. Air pollution laws are much more strict today, but fossil fuels still produce byproducts (I am *not* talking about CO2) which I would be glad to reduce still further.
Typical Democrat. Rather see jobs off-shored than work to make domestic production work better! As long as the pollution is in China then its not your problem, right?
Off-shoring jobs: Now *you* are the one sounding like a Democrat. Every time I hear some new project (like a new tollway, a new maglev, wind farms, or solar energy), it’s accompanied by the number of jobs it will supposedly create. I don’t trust those numbers further than I can throw them, nor do I trust the assertion that closing down refineries would automagically reduce some number of jobs. For all you or I know, there will be a whole new industry created from recycling lithium batteries and rare earth metals from EVs, and that will create more jobs than are lost from closed refineries. But I won’t try to predict that, nor will I trust any one’s numbers of how many jobs were created/ lost from this, even 14 years from now.
You are using the Democrats ploy – betting on the come and playing it up as a surety. Closing down refineries *will* kill existing jobs, not phantom jobs. Those other jobs are phantom jobs right now.
Most recycling of lithium batteries today is done through smelting in which the lithium is mostly lost. The nickel and cobalt are the best recovered materials for making a profit. Smelters aren’t large employers. How many highly trained people do you need to feed shredded batteries into a hopper. Lot’s different from the trained personnel running refineries.
Those smelters also need high temperatures from fossil fuels. Funny how so much of the “unreliable” power conversion is going to require *more* fossil fuel. If Biden kills fossil fuel by 2035 then what’s going to be used for all this high temperature stuff?
The Ruskies, Chinese and North Koreans will be incommunicado until further notice when they finally have recovered from rolling with laughter.
Zero and low emission vehicles are generally from the hybrid and electric car owners which are a scholarly bunch; over 70 percent of respondents have a four-year college or post-graduate degree, i.e., those that can afford an EV. This likely explains why the average household income of EV purchasers is upwards of $200,000. If you are not in that higher educated echelon and the high-income range of society, there may not be an appetite for an EV.
The government fits right in as they do not need any subsidies to entice them to purchase, as have unlimited funds – taxes – from the American public to pay for their EV’s.
I think the DC and surrounding area should be the first ones to switch to all electric everything. Capitol police cars, presidential motorcades, Marine One and Air Force One, all other military vehicles. That is a good start and we can see how well it works out pretty quickly.
I assume that charging station is powered by batteries? I mean, we wouldn’t want no petroleum products tarnish our green war machine, now, would we.
P.S. Charging station batteries are actually very cruel as it requires the exploitation of two thousand unicorns tied in tandem to collect enough unicorn farts for every kiloWattHour.
P.S. Nightmares fart more, but purifying their farts is expensive leaves stains on the sheets.
Gasoline is still going to be produced, it’s a byproduct of cracking crude oil. Originally it was just “burned-off” as unwanted/unusable. It was the invention of the automobile that found a use for this “byproduct.”
Federal agencies buying electric vehicles to support create good-paying, union jobs… in Japan.
Using the EVs that are newly-acquired by the Federal government is less than half the sad, sad story above.
The Federal government under the Biden administration is spending money like it grows on trees . . . a couple of trillion here for COVID-19 relief, several trillion there to fight climate change, five or so trillion over yon to insure social and economic injustice, etc., etc., etc.
According to GSA (see https://www.gsa.gov/policy-regulations/policy/vehicle-management-policy/federal-fleet-report ) the Federal non-military fleet of automobiles and trucks as of June 2020—almost all powered by gasoline, diesel or propane/natural gas—consisted of 471,600 vehicles with 48% of these being used by the US Postal Service.
The total cost for this non-military fleet of vehicles is given as $3.31 billion, with 56% of that attributed to the USPS segment of vehicles.
So, all these vehicles are going to be replaced over an unknown number of years by new EVs at what cost to the US taxpayers???
And let’s not forget the additional cost of buildup of the charging stations that will be required within/nearby the grounds where all these vehicles will be distributed and parked across the nation.
And let’s not forget the additional cost of the electricity to charge all these Government-owned vehicles.
And let’s not forget the additional cost of modifying the US grid infrastructure to support charging the half-million or so of these new EVs.
And let’s not discount that the Federal government is likely to by into the meme that most of these new EVs should have the deluxe package that includes fully-autonomous driving capability (the “safety” argument, dontcha know!) . . . what’s the cost-upper for that per vehicle?
And let’s not forget that the stated EV range on a full charge will far less in cold climates (with or without the use of a heater for the occupant(s)) and far less in hot climates (assuming the use of an air conditioner for cooling the occupant(s)).
And so on,and so on, and so on . . .
And all this from the newly-minted President that looked Americans straight in the eye, via the TV news coverage, and stated verbatim: ““I give you my word, I will always level with you.”
Sadly, just done with an individual’s stroke of the pen . . . Congress freely yielding up its power and responsibilities to Presidential executive orders.
Welcome to the new America.
Range decreases when batteries get hot, as well as when they get cold.
I understand that either Joe, his advisors, or the PR people were extraordinarily negligent in clarifying whether Joe included “fighting” military vehicles in his EO.
However, this discussion would have been much more informative if we assumed they will quickly come to their senses and we then discussed the impact of the substance of the order:
It is great to make fun of Joe’s bloopers, but this one is really serious and deserves serious discussion. (Now get off my lawn!)
remember when tons of money was spent overseas by HRC state dept for eco vehicles while actual embassy/consulate/outpost security was left to rot?
this guy remembers.
China will really appreciate the shutdown of all USN and USAF facilities due to a lack of carbon free power generating capacity.
Why Biden thinks eliminating native oil and gas will have any effect on
fossil fuel use is a mystery. his country currently exports LNG to other countries
and oil is used for a lot of things other than making gasoline, so many products will see a cost increase in made in America. And nobody is going to throw way their gas powered car just because the oil for gasoline may have to come from abroad. Actually I doubt that any automaker will still be making gas powered cars after 2025, so the net effect of all this will be negative and have no effect on carbon emissions.
When ideologues take over planning, you get Soviet-style 5 Year Plans. Everything is made of steel and everybody gets left-foot only shoes.
And you can have any color of car you want as long as it is black.
After waiting on the list for ten years.
As did Obama, Biden is circumventing the proper responsibilities of Congress. He is acting like a dictator. Interestingly, that is exactly what Democrats have accused Trump of doing.
One of the problems with Executive Orders is that they are rescinded as easily as they are declared. There is none of the back-and-forth debate that goes on in Congress, which acts to dampen the oscillations of emotion by allowing legislators to get input from their constituents and time to think about how to vote.
Democrats seem incapable of doing any long-range thinking, which is why Pelosi would say “He’s not MY president,” and Democrats would seriously consider eliminating Senate filibusters and packing the Supreme Court. Democrats are actually the party of “deplorables!”
Blah, blah, blah. Typical Climate Zealot folderol without substance. Goals without viable attainment plans nor realistic outcomes and no attention given to consequences.
This will be fun to watch when Biden’s motorcade has to stop to recharge when he has to use the bathroom.
This gives a whole new meaning to the term “Electronic Warfare.”…maybe we can convince future enemies to limit war to just video game competition….winner takes all.
A moment of sanity with the MSM:
https://news.yahoo.com/bidens-plan-replace-government-fleet-103026094.html
Don’t get too overjoyed with this. The article didn’t even begin to address the complexity of developing a logistics chain capable of supporting such a vast fleet. If production sucks up all the available motors then where will you go to get a replacement?
When will NAPA, Autozone, etc get supplied with replacement parts in the logistics chain? Till you can go to an auto supply store to get replacement parts in the same manner as you get an oxygen sensor, this is going to be a pipedream for most potential owners – including the government.
Tim
I didn’t give them accolades for recognizing the obvious. I was actually just surprised that they didn’t come out with the usual praise for a program that is based on a very shallow understanding of the complexities involved in making it happen.
I addressed some of the other oversights by the Biden administration in another comment in a recent article by Willis.
I’m reminded of Democrats dancing the macarena in celebration of Bill Clinton’s election. The dance includes a lot of arm and hand motion. This tradition is carried out today in the Biden administration with a lot of hand waving.
Eliminate petroleum or make it ridiculously expensive and exactly what do you make asphalt from to drive electric vehicles on?
I picture fleets of electric vehicles with broken down roads that destroy them.
There are already lots of places in this country that are in this kind of shape. State and local govt’s, especially in Democrat-run states, are more interested in wealth redistribution than in fixing their streets and roads!
In PA the legislature is more interested in wealth accumulation(personal you see). As a result the PA Turnpike is religiously maintained and constantly improved at high cost and not just by tolls. The legislature chips in multi-millions every couple of years so if they get kicked out of office or need to retire for some reason they are assured of a lucrative, do-little position, a pension, and retirement health benefits.
When wildfires break out during the summer and fall in arid regions, planes able to pull water from lakes and drop it on fires are frequently used to help put out the fires. If such a fire breaks out on government land, will they have to use an electric plane (which hasn’t been invented yet)?
Twisted rubber bands will be acceptable, if made in the USA.
Seriously, such fire bombers are usually old planes that have been retired from commercial transport business. What will firefighters rely on if a rapid transition is made to everything electric?
As said on another thread, the obvious idiocy of these Biden orders, plus the over-reach by Pelosi and Schumer, will make the Dems easy targets in 2022. Taking back the House will be easy. The Senate will be more difficult just given the composition of who is up for re-election. But Palin taking out Murkowski in Alaska primary is still an improvement, as would be MAGA replacements for Toomey (Pa) and Portman (Ohio).
Not so sure about that
https://twitter.com/loganclarkhall/status/1354608768198320128
Yes, Murkowski has to go. I’ll donate to her Republican opponent.