From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
From Net Zero Watch
At a World Bank event in April, former chief economist Lord Nicholas Stern called for a global ban on the manufacture and sale of combustion engine vehicles. At COP26, a coalition of multilateral development banks signed a joint statement announcing their intentions to ‘increase the level of private capital mobilised’ to fight climate change. Activists were infuriated that it omitted divestments from funding fossil fuels. Both the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank have faced industry pressure to stop investing in internal combustion engine vehicles by 2025. Sixty-eight percent of transport investment by the World Bank involves combustion engines. But perhaps the World Bank has not floored the accelerator on EVs yet because they recognise roadblocks keep the wheel out of reach for working families.
The UK Government insists that combustion engine vehicles will be banned from production, importing, and sale by 2030. But a global semiconductor shortage has produced a projected nine percent slump in electric vehicle sales in the UK. Motorists are modelled to save £700 on fuel for making the switch to EVs. However, road pricing and tolls have been proposed to replace Treasury revenue once fuel duty becomes obsolete. Therefore, the gap between petrol and electric car running costs may close. Electricity costs could even eclipse fuel prices, should the renewables generating electricity fail.
There are also infrastructure impediments to overcome. The ban would require 400,000 charging points to be installed across the UK by 2030, up from the only 35,000 that were in place as of last year. Many rural areas remain ‘charging blackspots’, inaccessible for EVs on long journeys. Annual installation must increase ten-fold to meet the Department for Transport’s promise that ‘drivers will never be further than thirty miles from a rapid charging station’.
Even if charger targets are met, streets could be lined with cars charging for up to twelve hours at a time. This issue will be exacerbated in cities. ‘Generation Rent’ faces housing price rises of 14.3 percent; the fastest for seventeen years. Their reliance on being packed and stacked into high-rise apartments means a third and rising of the population have no access to private off-street parking. 24.6 percent of vehicles are parked on streets overnight. A report published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) modelled electric car ownership will increase traffic congestion eleven percent by 2050. Combined with charging station scarcity, congestion could become chronic — with motorists jousting for parking and charging spaces, and charging stoppages slowing delivery times for various courier services. This constitutes quite the regression from the convenient five-minute-stop at your local petrol garage.
All of this is presuming that the cars themselves can be manufactured to meet demand. Making electric cars requires six times the minerals as combustion engine vehicles: needing thirty times as the lithium, nickel, and other metals currently in circulation. The UK must expand battery production capacity by ninety times the present amount to keep pace. But absent abundant domestic resources, Britain remains heavily dependent on our geostrategic rivals for the raw materials used in EV and battery manufacture.
Britain imports over 2200 tonnes of lithium every year. Recent sanctions on Russia affected Britain’s top import: $12 billion of annual metal imports. Nickel prices saw a short-squeeze, with prices increasing 250 percent to over $100,000 a tonne. Both metals are instrumental in EV battery manufacturing.
Meanwhile, China controls eighty percent of global annual battery production capacity, sixty percent of global graphite production, sixty five percent of nickel refining, and eighty percent of cobalt refining. This is because China’s Belt & Road Initiative has annexed more than a third of global precious metals deposits: including forty rare ore deposits in Zimbabwe, the ‘white goldrush’ of lithium under Argentinian salt-flats, and $1 trillion in lithium reserves in Afghanistan.
There is mounting evidence that the only way out of our rare metals shortage is to mine asteroids in outer space. Elon Musk’s rocket-measuring contest against Jeff Bezos and Richard Branston may be an interstellar gold rush to become Earth’s first trillionaire. But until these mad scientists invent safe passage to the stars, the rest of us will keep driving petrol cars.
But instead of abandoning infeasible commitments to the abolition of transport emissions within the next eight years eco-authoritarians use these shortages as an excuse to restrict energy consumption and abolish car ownership.
In addition to the usual anti-motorist platitudes by the cycling lobby, some have taken to advocating ride-share apps as a reason to ‘give up owning a vehicle’. These rent-only alternatives have the downside of making your means of mobility contingent on the kindness of strangers. Ride-sharing is a convenient addition to the transport economy. However, if car ownership were displaced wholesale by public transport and hire-cars, there are dire concerns for civil liberties. Say the wrong thing about the environment, and governments, or the increasing number of companies adopting environmental credit scores, can deplatform from anything except walking. Consumer choice must be a core principle of free societies — and that includes your right to buy and drive a petrol car.
EVs also render homeowners vulnerable to arbitrary power outages.Green Party Baroness Natalie Bennett has suggested that electric cars can be used a driveway backup generators, should renewables fail to meet consumer demand. The National Grid and Octopus Energy are piloting a policy which drains EV batteries of energy during generation droughts. Even if all of Britain’s cars became electric overnight, and full storage capacity could be returned to the grid without losses, it would still fall short of the deepest energy deficit by eighty-seven percent. This precedent is not only impractical: it means that the state can drain your EV’s battery flat, and enforce a travel lockdown anytime it pleases. If they can’t confiscate your car, the government can remotely deactivate your home charging point anytime they like.
Electric cars are, incontrovertibly, a great idea in theory. But those wanting everyone to drive electric won’t get anywhere fast by banning the combustion engine — all they will achieve is pricing all but a privileged few out of car ownership entirely. That would be politically suicidal; my apolitical plumber recently told me, ‘I’ve never been to a protest, but if they try to take my car, you’ll see me in the streets.’ If the World Bank and British government follow through on their plan to ban the combustion engine, they may well have riots on their hands. They must abandon the planned petrol car ban, or risk terrible consequences.
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I’ve lived in a few rural locations in the U.K. and in most of these places the local filling station will also be the local mechanics, the local shop, the post office etc. If we all have to drive E.V.s what will happen to these businesses when they loose the revenue from fuel sales. My guess is that a lot of them will no longer be profitable and will close, depriving people of vital local services. There is already a big problem with small villages loosing these kinds of services and becoming less attractive to live in and I can only see E.V.s making the situation worse.
That is at present costs for electricity and gasoline/diesel. What is going to happen to the price of electricity as the demand increases? What will happen to the cost of home insurance for homes with attached garages as insurance companies increasingly have to pay for the loss of homes from EVs spontaneously igniting while charging? What will happen to the cost of comprehensive auto insurance when an EV charging on the street ignites other cars like a row of toppled dominoes — fires that can’t be extinguished!
“… can’t be extinguished.” Correct. They *can* (but in a car carrier to do this would make the price of each EV to high to sell — even with taxpayers continuing to pay costs of production/fund the purchase) be contained with LOTS of water, but, not extinguished. They can only burn out.
(from Old Man Winter’s cited article, https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5117/htm, above)
… thermal runaway [is] more difficult to manage and continued cooling is required. The associated problems also often become exacerbated as LiB assemblies tend to be in a tightly packed configuration, and are kept in enclosures with minimum leeway and free spaces. …
the main impetus in finding alternative ways of fighting LiB fires mainly hinges on … deploying, water as the most efficient medium for continuous extinguishing and cooling. …
(emphases mine)
“Continuous extinguishing” — in other words: containment only. NOT true “extinguishing.”
I read a while ago that the Spanish Police employ a special metal box to contain burning EV’s for 24 hours until the fire has simply burned itself out.
Have you considered this is by design? It’s not a design flaw, it’s a feature. The people pushing these schemes don’t want you or I to have personal transportation save a bicycle? They want to do away with the suburbs, exurbs and single-family housing, control where and how you travel using only public transportation?
The only other possibility, admittedly a very real possibility is they are just dumber than a bag of hammers.
There is a third possibility – the people implementing policy are dumber than a bag of hammers being manipulated by others, more intelligent, by design.
Can you say, “Greedy useful idiots?” I knew you could.
Trouble for them is, we greatly outnumber them and vote. As long as we are not out-numbered by ignorant subway riders in dense cities we should be ok. When that happens, the next civil war may be fought between city-folk and rural-rednecks.
I’ll be on the side of the rural-necks, not just because I need my cars but because they are the one who grow the food!
It’s all about control. We have it. They want it. Who wins is up for grabs. We win, we keep some freedom. They win, we’re serfs, then slaves.
I suggest that we build new mental institutions and reopen those which are still standing. The cultists of the Climate Change religion will need to be housed and taken care of when the whole AGW bubble finally bursts. The sort of sane amongst us will need to round them up as they madly dash around screaming their failed beliefs.
The EV thing ain’t gonna cut it. Even now the minerals needed to make the batteries are in short supply for the manufacturers. Just for starters. Lots of refunds coming to those who already paid deposits.
It is rarely mentioned that EV battery packs are usually covered by a conditional warrant to eight years, by then depending on usage and recharging the battery pack capacity would be at best two thirds of original capacity but most I suspect would have much less capacity by that time.
The cost, trade-in valuation battery assessment value or replacement if the owner wants to keep the EV for more years must be added to fuel cost. We don’t normally replace liquid fuel tanks.
We old folks have actually had the ill-pleasure of trying to replace a battery under warranty. They are worthless. They prorate the amount based on the age or wear of the tire, subtract that from the manufacturers recommended price, and require you to replace it with the same brand battery.
Batteries are always ‘on sale’. Once it would have cost me more to replace a battery under warranty then to just walk in and buy one. At best you get a $5 discount, or so, and they have locked you into buying their battery.
Don’t even get me started with JC Penney’s “maintenance-free forever battery,” guaranteed to last you the lifetime of your American-made car.
Realistically eventually oil will become too expensive to refine into petrol and diesel fuels, but of course options include using black coal to produce diesel fuel, but I understand that is an expensive process as compared to refining oil.
EV is suitable for many if not most city and suburban personal transport needs, but so far too expensive compared to an equivalent ICEV. Even battery Electric Buses are useful and now in some Australia cities public transport EB have an overhead recharging system used at each bus stop to top up the battery pack.
However I cannot see how Electric long distance transport Trucks could be commercially viable because the battery pack weight would remove revenue “payload” capacity and recharging delays would be unacceptable. Here in Australia “Road Trains” consisting of up to four trailers are common on country roads and interstate routes. One trailer would need to be a battery pack carrier to cover the easy distances in between potential recharging, by diesel generators, stations.
The fact remains that same as renewable energy electric vehicles on a grand scale are a long way from becoming competitive on a level playing field, no government interference in the free market, no subsidies, etc.
whatever topic Ive heard Stern mouth off on..hes been ludicrously ill informed, like the King chappie..they have power but zero brains to match it
I am retired, and can feel my age. I bought my wife and I electric bikes, better to learn while we are able.
In Australia all our politicians are clueless. They have no idea what’s coming. They expect us to move to EV’s, but the grid output is being cut.
We have had constant riots for insanity, maybe it is time to have riots for sanity and reverse the destructive course those on the left have put us on.
It takes at least 10 years from the time of discovery until the first pound of a natural resource is produced. Some resources have been in the exploration/development process for over 30 years. Where do Our Wise Overlords think the massive amounts of copper will come from for the 3X upsizing the electric grid will require in order to recharge all the EVs that we will be forced to use? Government may be able to print money, but they cannot print copper, nickel or rare earths.
For reference, just look up the timeline for mining the massive mineral resource of the Pebble project in Alaska.
Pebble mine project was rejected, so was the copper, nickel and cobalt mine in Minnesota. So much for EV being made in the good old USA.
What could possibly go wrong as more & more of those “packed & stacked” in high-rise multifamily residential buildings charge EVs in garages BELOW living units? It is matter of when, not if, charging batteries burst into flames and ignite chain reactions throughout garages;-(
The ruling liberal global elite do not want us in any type of cars. They want us packed like sardines in big cities, where it is easier to control the masses by manipulation of electric power.
Of course, the ruling liberal global elite WILL have access to fossil fuel cars or EVs and will be able to travel at will to places they want to go.
The problem for these elite are that there are too many hoi polloi also able to travel at will to places they want to go and it is irritating the elite that they have to wait in line or be stuck in traffic with those who are lower than them in the pecking order. Getting these lowers out of the way allows the elite to move about freely as they wish and allows the elite to visibly see how much better they are than the masses, who must wait in long lines for mass transit or have to bike or walk everywhere.
A totally deluded political class accepting the word of a repeatedly erroneous economist.
A claim that only English majors and Liberal Arts degrees can make. Everyone else is far more likely to fully assess and properly attribute real costs, not fantasies.
Infrastructure that they, any of the Western governments, do not have the minerals, metals, smelters, refiners, manufacturers, laborers, skilled workers, supplies or capacities to accomplish.
As already mentioned just above, delusional fantasies.
This is a perfect example where globalist political despots imagine that sheeple will happily submit.
It would only take one event where the government uses cars charging as banks of batteries for general consumption. Before owners realize that any blackout located anywhere nearby means go unhook the car from the charging unit!.
No connected batteries, no bank of car batteries for general consumption.
Government then disallows your charging station, sue to have your always reliable internal combustion engine vehicle returned.
Sloppy economics so typical of Lord Stern and his political pals.
Gasoline prices are being forced higher by deluded governments. Who apparently fail to understand that increased fossil fuel costs greatly increase all fossil fuel derived products.
Especially electrical products and electricity.
Gas prices are high and climbing higher, yet the loudest voices right now are people who are receiving their winter home heating and electricity bills.
‘I’ve never been to a protest, but if they try to take my car, you’ll see me in the streets.’
But they already are. I’m still amazed at the lack of protest of the banning of ICE cars (all, even hybrids) in 2030. It’s as if people think “it’s mad, it’ll never happen”. But it will. And protesting in 2029 will do no good, as the auto manufacturers will have no ICE inventory.
In Australia governments Federal and State are pushing for a transition to EV, they continue to push for more unreliable so called renewable energy wind and solar installations to replace, they haven’t got a clue, or don’t care because short term politics and crony capitalism is their focus between elections, that the electricity grid, being the world’s largest interconnected grid, was commercially viable based on having major manufacturing business electricity consumer customers, and the lowest demand consumers being domestic benefited from the low electricity prices resulting and based on coal fired power stations and a small percentage from hydro power stations.
And today governments have at long last decided that security of the nation requires the capacity to manufacture locally instead of relying on imports, as far is local manufacturing is practical based on the consumer market demand for products. But in 1975 the UN Lima Protocol was signed by Australia agreeing to the gradual transfer of manufacturing industry to developing nations like China.