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Tag Archives: Batteries

Effect of Higher Battery Costs

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Donn Dears

…Effect of Higher Battery Costs… For the past several years the forecast for the cost of Li-ion batteries has been to come down to around $80/kWh, at which point battery-powered vehicles would be competitive with ICE vehicles. However, it now appears Continue reading Effect of Higher Battery Costs→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, BEV, China, CO2

Are Pencils in Danger?

Posted on February 7, 2023 by Donn Dears

…Are Pencils in Danger?… What do pencils and battery-powered vehicles have in common? Graphite. Graphite is used in pencils and in the Lithium-ion batteries powering battery-powered vehicles. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), more pounds of graphite are used Continue reading Are Pencils in Danger?→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, BEV, CO2, Graphite

About Clean Energy Crisis

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Donn Dears

…About Clean Energy Crisis… There are several important issues about the energy transition that need to be discussed. Does the United States have ample fossil fuel reserves, sufficient to be the “energy arsenal” for the free world? Can wind and Continue reading About Clean Energy Crisis→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, BEV, CO2

There Likely Will Be Stranded Assets

Posted on January 17, 2023 by Donn Dears

…There Likely Will Be Stranded Assets… If battery-powered vehicle (BEV) sales are not mandated by the government, and the market for BEVs is much smaller than now predicted, will the battery factories being built become stranded assets? The earlier article Continue reading There Likely Will Be Stranded Assets→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, BEV, CO2

Stranded Assets

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Donn Dears

…Stranded Assets… There has been considerable conjecture that billions of dollars worth of assets in the fossil fuel industry will be stranded when fossil fuels are no longer needed because of the energy transition. But what about the billions being Continue reading Stranded Assets→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, BEV, CO2

Editors and Obvious Misinformation

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Donn Dears

…Editors and Obvious Misinformation… Editors should be able to prevent publishing obvious errors.  Even though the left has turned words upside down Orwellian style, the left certainly can’t claim that an error is not an error. A recent article made the Continue reading Editors and Obvious Misinformation→

Posted in CO2, Energy, Freedom, Government, Politics | Tagged Batteries, CO2, solar, wind

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Table of Contents

Introduction

When we flip the switch, the lights come on without anyone thinking about it. This has only been true for the last hundred years in metropolitan areas, and for only approximately eighty years in rural areas with the enactment of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.

In 1935, only 25 percent of rural homes in the United States had electricity, and there are people alive today who grew up without electricity. Today, few people are even aware of the monolithic system that generates, distributes, and controls the electricity that flows with seeming effortlessness across the United States. This system is referred to as the grid, which is actually three grids covering the entire lower forty-eight states.

Over the past one hundred years, there have been only two area-wide blackouts affecting over 30 million people caused by a failure of the transmission system. There have been other blackouts—mostly caused by storms—affecting smaller groups, perhaps as many as several million people. Overall, the grid has worked remarkably well. Reliability can still be improved upon, but this is primarily a question of placing transmission and distribution lines underground to minimize weather-induced outages.

Suddenly, we are faced with a threat to the grid we haven’t seen before. It is a threat that can dramatically increase blackouts and the suffering that accompanies them. Some in leadership positions have viewed climate change as an existential threat to mankind and have implemented actions to eliminate fossil fuels from the generation of electricity. Some have claimed that wind and solar and other renew- ables can replace all the coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear power plants in the United States. It can be argued that the actions these people are taking are making electricity more costly and less reliable, and placing Americans at risk for little or no reason. They are willing to gamble the safety and lives of Americans, as well as the American economy, on an ideology.

Our nation has suffered through a medical war fighting COVID-19 in which thousands died. As my neighbor said,

“The inability of our country to anticipate the corona- virus pandemic and put in place adequate reserves of all of the things we needed—PPE, ventilators, masks, tests, hospital beds, etc.—speaks loudly and directly to the need for reliable on-demand electricity and the need to plan for it right now.”

Imagine if Americans had to suffer through rolling blackouts while quarantined at home during a future pandemic. How would newly erected emergency hospitals operate without electricity, let alone our existing hospitals without diesel fuel or natural gas to power emergency generators?

This was brought home by an oped in the Washington Post. Quoting from the op-ed:

Residential use is up as workers and school children stay home.

[Demand is down] in locked up restaurants, offices and factories.

Hospitals are a different story: They consume twice as much per square foot as hotels . . . lead schools and office buildings by an even greater margin. And their work couldn’t be more vital as they confront the novel coronavirus.

A grid operator, sequestered in his dispatch center in East Greenbush, New York, said it all, “Keeping the lights on. . . . It’s so critical.”3

There is little doubt there will be another pandemic. The only question is when. We must do what is needed to guarantee adequate and reliable supplies of electricity in preparation for the next pandemic.

President Trump recognized the vital importance of the grid when he issued an executive order on May 1, 2020, to protect the grid from foreign adversaries. He said the grid, “provides the electricity that sup- ports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastruc- ture, economy, and way of life.”

There is also an ideology that threatens the grid. This book will examine how federal regulators, state governments, utility companies, and the operators of the grid themselves are imposing their beliefs about climate change on all Americans and placing the grid in great jeopardy. Unelected bureaucrats and self-imposed intelligentsia are making decisions that place all Americans in danger.

Looming Energy Crisis will show you why we must continue to use fossil fuels and why we must protect the grid from the actions of those who are imposing their personal beliefs on the rest of us. Our objective should be low-cost reliable electricity available for everyone.

Reliability is a national security issue.