"The shocking truth about electric cars"

The shocking truth about electric cars - The Globe and Mail:

Electric cars aren’t necessarily green at all. Electric vehicles require large amounts of electricity – so much that Toronto Hydro chief Anthony Haines says he doesn’t know how he’d get it. “If you connect about 10 per cent of the homes on any given street with an electric car, the electricity system fails,” he said recently.

You cannot repeal the second law of thermodynamics.

Remember the electric-only Honda Clarity, that was advertised to use no gasoline at all?



The problem is that hydrogen is a fuel but not a resource. Hydrogen gas, H2, has to be made. It just can't be sucked out the air or water or earth. As I explained in "Buy a Honda, Kill a Polar Bear,"

where does the driver get the hydrogen to begin with? Hydrogen gas, H2, is not found free in nature. There are two ways to separate hydrogen from its compounds: hydrolysis and reforming. The former, most commonly and easily done with water, uses electricity and a catalyst to break H2O into H2 and O2. Reforming uses heat instead of electricity.

More than 90 percent of the hydrogen produced in the world is obtained by steam reforming of natural gas. It's not energy efficient since the energy gained from the hydrogen gas is less than the energy required to produce it. H2 produced in this manner is not used for fuel (except rocket fuel and some others exotics), but for industrial and chemical purposes. ...

That's the problem with fuel-cell or any other electrically-powered vehicle. There is no free way to produce the electricity. Since most electricity in the United States is produced by coal-fired plants, all that electric cars do is shift the environmental effects from the tailpipe to the power plant. This is not a good shift, since today's auto burn extremely cleanly already.

If the H2 is produced using electricity somewhere, then odds are that coal produces that electricity. So the CO2 production has been merely moved off the auto to another emitter. Also, does it take more energy to produce the H2, whatever the source, than the H2 supplies? If so, exactly what is the benefit of the Clarity?

The Globe and Mail makes the same point:

And if the extra electricity [needed to recharge electric cars] isn’t generated by renewable energy, then overall carbon dioxide emissions will go up, not down, Prof. Smil says. “The only way electric cars could reduce global carbon emissions would be if all the additional electricity needed to power them came from carbon-free energies.” He also makes the essential point that the world’s energy infrastructure is based on fossil fuels. Changing that will take decades.

Electric cars are not ready for mass market and never will be.

Pirates Are a Better Bargain Than Congress

Information Dissemination: Pirates vs. Congress: How Pirates Are a Better Bargain

Pirates are hardly a financial blip of the
total costs of maritime shipping. 

What entity costs the maritime shipping industries more money - pirates or the US Congress? You know the answer just from the way the question is phrased.

Stephen M. Carmel, Senior Vice President of Maersk Line, Ltd., given August 3rd, 2011 at the Commander Second Fleet Intelligence Symposium of the US Navy. This is a long but must-read speech to anyone who wants to understand the relative risks that shipping has to calculate. And the very tiptop risk of all is what draconian, expensive regulations will be laid atop the industry by the US Congress.

In fact, the Congress costs shipping so much money that piracy costs are barely a blip. Read the whole thing. Some excerpts:

First let me say right out of the gate I am no fan of pirates. Do not like them at all in fact, contrary to what many may perceive from my remarks on the topic. Pirates do impose a cost on our business that we would rather not bear if possible so it is something I worry about. But, while worrying about pirates I also worry about the effect of MARPOL Annex VI and the cost of complying with increasingly harsh emissions control requirements, something that will cost our industry roughly $6 Billion a year to comply with now and that figure will go up as tighter standards kick in in the 2014 time frame. I worry about the requirement to cold iron in LA [use commercial power while at dock], something that is very expensive and disruptive. And since while common for Navy ships to go on shore power, commercial ships never do it and are not fitted with a system to do so, a modification is required that will cost the equivalent of one ransom for each ship it is done on. ...

I worry about bad policy such as the requirement for 100% scanning of containers imposed by congress in the “Implementing the requirements of the 9/11 commission Act”, a requirement which the European Commission estimates will cost the global economy 150 billion Euros or about 215 billion dollars per year were it to be implemented by all our trading partners. With that single act congress potentially does 20 times more damage to the global economy than pirates do by even the most ridiculous estimates of the cost of piracy, and in the process actually degrades maritime security rather than improves it. ...

I worry a heck allot more about bad policy than I do bad guys, bad policy being easier to inflict and harder, and expensive, to recover from once it happens. And speaking of bad policy specifically as relates to pirates, there can be no better example than the Executive order which most believe heads us down the slope towards making ransoms illegal, which in my view is breathtaking in its shortsightedness. That would remove the only tool that is available to us that has proven effective at resolving a piracy incident. Making ransoms illegal is unenforceable, will increase the violence against the crew, will criminalize the victims, and will do nothing to deter pirates. Hostages are a commodity to pirates and they will always find a buyer. [Carmel goes on to explain that if companies can't pay ransom, pirates will simply sell captives into "the very active slavery market."] ...

I assume everyone here knows the basic statistics – piracy is a very rare event considering the volume of traffic that moves through the area. The probability of any specific ship being attacked is remote, and for the types of ships that actually move the majority of international trade even more so, approaching zero. Attack success rates have fallen into the 14% range. But we’ll not belabor the obvious at this point and instead dwell a little on the issues that hide behind the numbers – the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say.

From the US perspective it is difficult to see how piracy affects our economy or international trade in any significant way.

There is lots more, very compelling stuff from a man who knows firsthand what he's talking about.

I covered a lot of related issues in 2009. One thing I pointed out, that Mr. Carmel confirms, is that piracy off Somalia is not a matter of national security of the United States (link).

Piracy there doesn't even rate a blip on the screen of international maritime commerce. Barely more than one-half of one percent of ships transiting the waters concerned were even threatened with attack last year, much less actually hijacked. The "piracy tax," or the increased costs to shippers of the piracy, is virtually nil as a percentage of total operating costs. Besides which, what little financial end-costs there are are borne mostly by Europeans, not Americans. Only one kidnapped crewman has died in captivity, and he under circumstances not clear (which does not absolve his captors of culpability, it just means that he might not have been murdered).

This means that combating piracy should not displace, either in urgency or in budget, truly critical security issues such as fighting al Qaeda, stabilizing Iraq, winning in Afghanistan or continuing to discover and shut down nascent networks seeking to bring death and destruction to American citizens or possessions.

At best, anti-piracy has to remain an economy-of-force action.

But when it comes to "economy," the US Congress is clueless about what it is costing consumers because of all the layers of suffocating regulations it adds every session.

Crush them in red tape

It is hard to believe even our hyper-regulatory government would try to do this, but it is: feds want to require all farm tractor drivers to possess a commercial driver's license.

Concerned with the amount of farm equipment making short hops between fields and down public roadways, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering whether or not to classify agricultural machines like tractors as "commercial vehicles," requiring a CDL to operate.

The requirements would subject farmers to the same rules governing truck drivers, requiring them to keep logs and limit their hours.

Farmers also fear the prospect of replacing family help with expensive professional drivers, something that could end up costing everyone -- if it doesn't break the bank.

"Concerned" gives the game away. Exactly what is there to be "concerned" about? The concern is purely bureaucratic. Remember den Bestes's Law: "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can."

But of course, the strangling restriction is for our own good (they always are):

“It’s just a dumb idea,” says Jake Cummins, executive vice president of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation.

He says in addition, the proposal would require farmers and ranchers to get a medical card and fill out a log book as if they’re a long-haul semi driver.

Cummins says he was told by federal officials this change is being considered in the name of safety. He says that argument is a way to quiet down any criticism.

Of course! "It's for the children." Now shut up, he explained.

There is no issue here other than increasing the tentacles of Statist reach and control. As Shikha Dalmia wrote, "The president stretches executive power to expand the warfare state and the regulatory state." And as Steven den Beste pointed out last month:

Q: What does Obama want?

A: He wants a huge, and permanent, increase in the size of government. This is the “change” he campaigned on, but never really described. The goal was to make the US into a European-style “Social Democracy”.

You may recall that last month, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu explained the coming requirement that Americans use non-incandescent light bulbs this way:

“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” he said.

Always remember the Denver Post's David Harsanyi's trenchant observation, "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices." Consider this summary of "progressive" politics: The state,

... organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.

Who explained that? Benito Mussolini. Now you understand why we are all to be required to use CFLs next year and why an 11-year-old girl was threatened with arrest and cited with a $535 fine by the Fish and Wildlife Service for saving a baby woodpecker.

"Nothing outside the State." That's where we are, people.

Non-story of the day: troops pay Delta extra baggage fee

OTB:

Earlier this week a group of soldiers who had just returned from Afghanistan were making their way from Baltimore to their base in Louisiana, when they ran into a Delta Airlines baggage policy that said they would have to pay for the five bags per person they were carrying, which including not only personal gear but also equipment.

Read James Joyner's excellent coverage and all the comments. Why is this a non-story? Because every soldier will be reimbursed by the government as usual.

The lawyers will love this one

A taxiing Air France A380 - the world's largest passenger plane - clipped a delta commuter jet with its wingtip at New York's JFK airport.

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

On Oct. 30, a A380 clipped the wing of another A380 that was parked at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. I wonder whether the pilots of the two moving A380s are continuing on flight status. Although the airports' ground controllers route the aircraft, the pilot in command is always ultimately responsible for safe flying or taxiing.

The commuter jet in the video was a Bombardier CRJ700 (pronuunced "bom-bar-dee-ae," not bom-bar-deer). It was a major impact. The big Airbus just spun it like a top, giving new seriousness to the standard caution to leave seat belts fastened until the aircraft is parked at the gate. Note that the smaller jet's left landing gear was lifted off the ground as the plane was spun counter-clockwise. It's not hard to imagine that some of the Bombardier's passengers suffered acceleration injuries, although first reports are that no one was injured. But just wait, lawsuits will follow and if there are actual injuries, well, they should.

The high-speed rail fetish

High Speed Rail is not about transportation. It's about government.

Despite VP Biden's assertion that the United States can lead the 21st century only if it imitates China, I have always suspected that something else was in play with the Left's fascination with high-speed rail (HSR). What could it be?

Joel Kotkin pretty much demolishes the notion that the HSR system that President Obama has proposed at a going-in cost of $53 billion will ever be practical or profitable. For example,

Arguably the biggest problem with high-speed rail is its extraordinary costs, which would require massive subsidies to keep operating. Unlike the Federal Highway Program, largely financed by the gas tax, high-speed rail lacks any credible source of funding besides taxpayer dollars.

Part of the pitch for high-speed rail is nationalistic. To be a 21st century super power, we must emulate current No. 2 China. But this is a poor reason to indulge in a hugely expensive program when the U.S. already has the world’s most evolved highway, freight rail and airline system. ...

Spending billions on a conveyance that will benefit a relative handful of people and places is not just illogical. It’s obscene.

Not so, that last. Well, it is obscene, but the Left's fetish with high-speed rail is entirely logical when one realizes that HSR is not about transportation. It's about government.

Obama et. al. and his long line of Democrat predecessors who have also promoted HSR surely know the financial realities, yes? One would hope so, but I am far from convinced. One of the most prominent dysfunctions of the Left is its self-conviction that we proles really do want to be controlled and managed by our betters.

Obama, like all "progressives," thinks that the masses are actually eager to be embrace statist control of their lives. The progressive world view is that ordinary people are basically incapable of living rightly. Therefore, they must be managed for their own good, and the more closely the better. Furthermore, they think that the masses agree. But we don't and we won't.

So they really may think that so many riders will flock to HSR that it will be self supporting. But that is simply fantasy, the triumph of runaway imagination over empirical data of other government-funded rails in the country.

Second, the fact that HSR is a perpetual black hole of taxpayer money is likely, to Obama and Co., a feature, not a bug. As Will Rogers said long ago, the closest thing we have in this life to immortality is a government program. If HSR guarantees a government agency in perpetuity and a suitably large budget to keep it running, so much the better!

Finally, riders on a train need not be considered as individuals. They are collectively the masses. There few things that give the Left more salivating joy than the prospect of the masses moving together as one under government control, according to government schedules, to and from government-selected terminals, at government-set speeds, with their on-board activities strictly controlled (no smoking, etc.). While aboard the train, the rider-masses are more completely, physically under the government thumb than they'll ever be the rest of the day. And that is a true dream of the Left.

So HSR is a threefer in the minds of the Left:

A. The masses want it to begin with, so we will "serve" them by controlling them,

B. It permanently enlarges the size, scope and expense of government,

C. It incrementally gives us greater control over the actual bodies and activities of the rider-masses at least for a significant part of the day.

Personally, I think that C is the main attraction. As the Denver Post's David Harsanyi put it, "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices."

Obama: Lets's Build the World's Slowest High-Speed Rail!

President Obama pledged in his State of the Union speech last month to seek funding for development of high-speed rail. This week we've learned some details: "U.S. plans to inject $53 billion into passenger rail"

PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced an ambitious $53 billion U.S. program to build new high-speed rail networks and make existing ones faster over the next six years. ...

"This is about seizing the future," he said, making the announcement at Philadelphia's busy 30th Street station with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The United States should follow the example of Japan and China and build high-speed rail, Biden said. "If we do not, you tell me how America is going to be able to lead the world in the 21st century," he said.

Holy steam engine, Batman! America's actual position on the world stage depends on building a railroad! In my mind's eye:

President Obama, on the red phone: Kim Jong, I have three carrier groups off your shores and and an armored US Army corps arriving in South Korea. This is my ultimatum: give up your atomic weapons program, or else!

Kim: Do you have high speed rail in your capitalist, exploiting, oppressive country?

Obama (long pause): Um, uh, well, Republicans in Congress, uh, George W. Bush's fault, er, lobbyists, and um, uh, earmarks ... well, ahem, no, we don't.

Kim: Then you cannot lead the world in the 21st century and there is no reason for me to heed your empty ultimatum. The French, on the other hand, have Le Tren Grand Vitesse and therefore terrify me. But America, I simply dismiss.

Obama: But I have three carrier groups and an Army ... .

Kim: [Dial tone]

But back to the train-apple of Joe Biden's eye. In another article we learn:

According to the plan laid out Tuesday by Biden, the first step of the six-year plan would be to invest $8 billion to develop or improve three types of interconnected corridors:

Core express corridors would form the backbone of the national high-speed rail system, with electrified trains traveling on dedicated tracks at speeds of 125 to 250 m.p.h or higher.

Regional corridors would lay the foundation for future high-speed service, with trains traveling between 90 to 125 m.p.h.

Emerging corridors would provide travelers with access to the larger national high-speed network and travel at as much as 90 m.p.h.

This will make the American "high speed" rail system the slowest in the world. Consider this video produced by advocates of HS rail in California. Listen for the speeds attained by foreign trains.



Why does VP Biden think that having the slowest high speed rail will enable America to lead the world in the 21st century?