Tesla | Tom Balek - Rockin' On The Right Side

Decades ago liberal political and cultural leaders found a topic that would frighten weak-minded people into doing things that are clearly illogical and against their best interests. “Global Warming” became the cause celebre of leftists worldwide, and has been used – often in conjunction with other concocted concerns – to bully people into accepting Marxist control over their lives.

For years we have been warned that the polar ice caps would disappear, the oceans would rise swamping coastal cities, the rain forests of South America would disappear, countless animals would be extinct, the air we breathe would be destroyed all because of fossil fuels or carbon dioxide or cow farts or something . . . it has been utter doom and gloom for all of my life, and I’m no spring chicken.

The goal of the Marxists is to shut down all energy sources that existed before they decided global warming was a thing. Petroleum has got to go, too “dirty”. Hydroelectric? Fish don’t like it. Nuclear power? The Russians melted down a nuke plant once. Coal makes people’s faces dirty. And there must be something wrong with natural gas, there is so much of it and Trump likes it.

Despite technological advances and resource discoveries that turn all of the Marxists’ fears upside down, they have persisted in trying to convert the world to new energy sources, whether they work or not, for the purpose of gaining control over our personal behavior.

Well, the new energy sources don’t work. And the world has begun to figure this out.

At the same time we are discovering that “renewable” electric energy sources are far less efficient and abundant than conventional power, we are converting our energy use to electric only.

Ford Motor Company did more to advance the standard of living for average citizens than perhaps anyone else in history by making gas-powered vehicles affordable for the masses. Then they were pushed by Marxists in government and other institutions to shift production away from internal combustion and toward battery-powered EVs. Now the car companies have announced that they are, again, cutting back on EV (electric vehicle) production, due to lack of demand.

It seems that consumers have figured out that even with huge taxpayer subsidies to both the buyers and the sellers of EVs, battery-powered vehicles are still no bargain. The range of an EV is about 300 miles, more or less, on a battery charge, and electricity is not free or readily available when all the power plants have been replaced by inefficient wind and solar and neighborhood grids can’t support the additional loads required to charge many cars overnight. The batteries must be replaced when worn out (eight to twelve years), at a cost of up to $15,000 plus installation. So the value of a used EV depletes quickly. The old batteries are a landfill disposal nightmare. The batteries require rare earth minerals to produce. Batteries don’t work well in extreme heat or cold. EVs weigh significantly more than gas-powered cars, so they are tough on tires and roads. Car battery fires are daunting for firemen, and EVs are proving much less reliable than gas-powered cars. Let’s not forget the sticker price for EVs is significantly higher than gas burners, and manufacturers are still losing a ton of money.

Any time the government has to bribe producers to make something, and/or consumers to buy something, you can bet it will end up being a bad deal for everybody, except those who take illicit advantage of somebody else’s forced investment. Free market supply and demand is perfect – producers are encouraged to make products that buyers want and can afford.

Last year the South Carolina legislature gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives and cash to Volkswagen/Scout to build a new EV manufacturing plant in the Palmetto State. The spending bill was pushed through rapidly and with little or no transparency and apparently not a lot of critical thought. One year later, car companies are cutting way back on production and plans for battery plants are being scrapped. The failure of South Carolina’s investment in the EV industry is predictable and it will be held against elected officials who voted for it.

Yes, people have wised up and the Green New Deal is now old news. It has been replaced by the Next New Pandemic.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well you could search the whole world over
And never find another like it
It's got a built in lifetime guarantee
It's a one time only offer
And darling once you've tried it
You're gonna fall in love with it you'll see

Have I Got A Deal For You - Reba McEntire

Gas is down to $1.65 a gallon here in South Carolina, and dropping.

It seems like only yesterday we feared industrial nations would need more oil than could be produced, and that we might even run out of oil. The price of oil spiked upward, motivating scientists and entrepreneurs to search for new sources and methods for meeting the world’s growing need for affordable energy.

rusty-wind-turbine Pressed by our federal government, and rewarded with huge taxpayer-funded subsidies, domestic energy providers tried wind power, but that was a bust. It quickly became evident that windmill farms are horribly inefficient, difficult and expensive to maintain, and damaging to birds. Not to mention they are an eyesore. Now thousands of rusting, inoperative windmills blot the American landscape, and the ones that still work require ongoing federal cash infusions.

Solar power didn’t work either. The cost per unit of power produced was even worse than wind, requiring financial support from taxpayers to bring it to market. Solar panels take up too much real estate, are subject to weather, and could only provide a small part of our electrical needs even in the best of circumstances. In the scramble for easy government money, corruption in the solar power industry was rampant.

The government even forced us to add ethanol to gasoline, despite estimates by scientists that corn ethanol production uses six times more energy than it produces. The push toward ethanol threw a monkey wrench into the agricultural industry.

But while the federal government (like always) failed miserably to solve the problem, the free market (like always) came through with flying colors, finding a way to affordably meet our current and future energy demands. Guess what? It’s still oil and natural gas. Thanks to new high-tech methods of finding and tapping oil and natural gas reserves with a small and ecologically benign footprint, we now have an overabundance of available energy.

So now we can get rid of the expensive, corrupt, and unproductive taxpayer subsidies for solar power, wind generators, electric cars and ethanol plants, right?

Sigh.

Today our congressmen and women are voting on yet another bloated omnibus spending bill which includes:

a five-year extension of the solar investment tax credit (ITC)
a five-year extension of the wind production tax credit (PTC)
an increased allocation to the Department of Energy, most of which gets used for subsidies and contracts to politically-connected cronies
a three-year extension of the land and water conservation fund (LWCF), which will result in even more government ownership of resource-rich land

The uber-rich will still get $7500 from taxpayers for each $100,000 Tesla electric car they buy. The owner of Tesla will rake in millions more in subsidies. Meanwhile your own ten-year old Chevy will die prematurely from burning 10% ethanol while the prohibitive price of The-Three-Stooges-1 beef erases steaks and roasts from your grocery list. And the pure gas you buy for your boat, which can’t use ethanol, costs 70 cents per gallon more than the stuff with ethanol added. Huh?
I think I know who is in charge of our energy policy. Larry, Curly, and Moe.