print“The benefits [of electric cars] to the consumer are few, much less to the environment, unless a steady discharge of lead, cadmium, and nickel—the byproducts of batteries—is a blessing in disguise.” So I wrote in “Commie Cars,” in 2002. Another pesky matter about the junk science undergirding electric cars, alluded to in the same piece, concerns the source of energy. This leftist blockheads (including so-called right wingers) have proven incapable of tracing in their minds:
Perhaps the biggest obfuscation in the gimmick-car racket—which President Bush has fallen for, if to judge from his energy plan—has to do with the source of the energy. Whether a vehicle is propelled by hydrogen-powered fuel cells or electricity, both electricity and hydrogen don’t magically materialize in the vehicle. They must first be generated. Be it coal, natural gas, nuclear or a hydroelectric dam, these cars are only as clean as the original source of energy that generated the vim that powers them.
This understanding is finally catching on: “Business World Columnist Holman Jenkins Jr. reports on a new study that shows electric cars pollute far more than gas-powered vehicles.” Via Wall Street Journal comes this terrible transcript of a video segment worth watching:
The National Academy of Sciences has a new report out with some surprising revelations … about battery powered cars & their environmental impact … business World Columnist Holman Jenkins Junior stays with us now … battery powered cars are good for the environment right? … unfortunately the whole … environmental impact from cradle to grave of these that are being manufactured … that they are more than gasoline powered cars might wake … well … for one thing … hidden dangers toxic materials … or is that in a forty percent from the scene is actually comes from coal … these are all burning cars the net … and open title of worst pollution especially in articulates in the metals … and at the gasoline motor or so basically you’re just trying to turn the location of pollution and making it better making words … all men … the falling oil prices causing some of these academics to reconsider the economics of green … in color arts … consumers to be considered the economics of it it’s intimate to government subsidies on the cards look even more ridiculous … what really undercuts the political … according to county records is reports like this one which says that the … environmental impact worse not better … all the people who bought these cars now as tokens of virtue are going to have to live under that … the number of this … report is that you not helping and burning hurting at … all … let’s say you are an environmentalist if you cannot … buy a battery … powered car and Tesla are ever … in what should you be doing … well if you’re concerned about global warming is due to the network … American cars anyway … they’re tiny fraction of the problem we should focus on power plants and … or replacing coal with nuclear if you really believe that global warming is a threat that’s the only realistic solution … the major source of the problem is our plants in the … end of major solution to … the renewal Wallace or wind or solar extended the nuclear button … a lot of great people don’t like nuclear it there’s this stock and bond when they haven’t faded away … it … plays out like the Obama administration that’s their declaring war on coal and power plants … but that subject for another day business World Columnist Holman Jenkins Junior thank so much.