Hurricane Ian hit south Florida on September 28th as a category 4, with 155 mph sustained winds, causing devastating damage throughout the state, billions of dollars of damage, many lives lost, and the usual suspects have all stood up and announced that this was the indisputable result of climate change.
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid said Wednesday - the day hurricane Ian hit, “our earth is getting warmer and there’s just no doubt, I think, left that it[climate change] is feeding these beasts” CNN’s Bill Weir, proclaimed, “This is exactly what climate scientists have been warning about for a long time and now we get to see it up close.”
CNN’s Don Lemon tried to get National Hurricane Center Acting Director Jamie Rohme, to blame the intensity of Hurricane Ian on climate change, when he asked, “What effect has climate change had on this phenomenon that is happening now, because it seems these storms are intensifying that’s the question?” Rohme responded, “I don’t think you can link climate change to any one event.” Lemon then dismissed the expert by saying, “ Okay, well listen, I grew up there and these storms are intensifying something is causing them to intensify.” Lemon arrogantly believes that his personal experiences trump actual science.
Congresswoman Val Demings (D-FL) said we need to “acknowledge climate change and take it extremely seriously.” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) suggested that Democrat climate policies would prevent hurricanes like Ian in the future when she said, hurricane Ian is “why we’ve got to win this midterm. We just did something about climate change for the first time in decades. That’s why we got to win this[election] as that hurricane bears down on Florida.” Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Christ said, “one factor in all of these [hurricanes] is climate change. These storms are getting bigger, they’re getting stronger, and they’re affecting that many more lives as a result of it.”
We are continually being told that natural disasters like these are the definitive result of climate change. But a hurricane is a weather event. It is not climate. We are reminded of the difference between the two all the time during the winter. Whenever a blizzard hits the Northeast, an arctic blast cripples the Midwest, or Texas is devastated by record colds, we are told that those events are “weather, not climate”, and a weather event is not a reflection of climate change.
In 2019, a polar vortex hit the Midwest United States dropping temperatures to record lows of minus 60 degrees in some areas. When President Donald Trump tweeted, “In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever record… People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Warming?” The NOAA climate Twitter account immediately shot back with, “Winter storms don’t prove that global warming isn’t happening.”
So, when anybody has the temerity to ask the obvious question, ‘if there is global warming, why are we experiencing record cold temperatures in the winter?’ They are immediately chastised and embarrassed. ‘Weather is different than climate, you idiot. How can you be so stupid to confuse the two?’ One of the reasons why people confuse the two is because the same people who tell us that weather and climate are two different things in the winter, conflate the two in the summer. Every record high temperature anywhere on the planet in the summer is touted as proof that climate change is real, and if everyone doesn’t go out and buy electric cars, solar panels, and windmills, we will all die in five years.
Ironically, after chastising climate skeptics for trying to use extreme winter storms to disprove climate change, climate activists turn right around and try to use them to prove climate change. Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer argued that blizzards are proof the planet is warming when he said, climate change will cause a “shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch[blizzards].” But I thought we couldn’t use a weather event, especially a winter weather event, as evidence in the climate change debate.
These people need to make up their minds; is a weather event, evidence of the existence of climate change, or is it not? But they will never make up their minds because, for them to prove their narrative, they must continually change the rules of the game. To climate activists, weather is not climate in the winter, but weather is climate in the summer. One of the reasons why I am skeptical of climate change is precisely because of this type of illogical logic that the climate activists are continually spewing. If you want people to believe your theories then be consistent, be honest, and don’t use hyperbole. But sadly, the climate change activists continually violate all three.
On Wednesday, MSNBC Reporter Ali Velshi said, “People say there have been hurricanes for millennia, well that is true but sometimes we get ones that are so much more damaging and so much more intense.” Instead of simply eyeballing it, and deciding in the heat of emotion whether we are getting more hurricanes and more intense hurricanes, why don’t we look at the facts, the actual numbers? Here are statistics of hurricanes over the last 172 years that have hit the mainland United States - directly from the NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Year Hurricanes MajorHurricanes
1851-1900 97 27
1901-1950 95 34
1951-2000 72 28
2001-2050(est) 91 32
From 1851 to 1900, 97 hurricanes made landfall in the United States and 27 major hurricanes.
From 1901 to 1950, 95 hurricanes made landfall in the United States and 34 major hurricanes, a decrease of 2 hurricanes, and an increase of 7 major hurricanes.
From 1951 to 2000, 72 hurricanes made landfall in the United States and 28 major hurricanes, a dramatic decrease of 23 hurricanes and a decrease of 6 major hurricanes.
There were substantially more hurricanes and roughly the same number of major hurricanes that hit the United States in the last half of the 19th century when our use of fossil fuels was the lowest than in the last half of the 20th century when our use of fossil fuels was the highest. How could that be? If burning fossil fuels makes the planet warmer, and warming the planet causes more hurricanes and more intense hurricanes, then why were there more hurricanes when we were burning fewer fossil fuels? Why? Can any climate activist explain this? Has anyone even tried? Has anyone even looked at the numbers?
From 2001 to 2022, there have been 40 hurricanes and 14 major hurricanes that have hit mainland United States. If we project those numbers over the first half of the 21st century, we are on pace to have 91 hurricanes and 32 major hurricanes during that time frame which is an increase of 19 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes from the last half of the 20th century. But that increase would only get us back to hurricane levels we were at 100-150 years ago at the start of the industrial revolution when our use of fossil fuels was at its lowest. We are on pace to have fewer hurricanes and fewer major hurricanes in the first half of the 21st century than we had in the first half of the 20th century when our use of fossil fuels was substantially less.
The numbers are clear. There has not been an increase in the number of hurricanes and the intensity of hurricanes for the 172 years spanning from 1851 to 2022 - from the beginning of the industrial revolution until now. But what is so hard to understand is that these hurricane statistics have been sitting out there in plain sight at NOAA, and no one who has argued that climate change causes an increase in hurricane activity cared to look at them to verify their assertions. The climate change proponents went solely on emotion. A scary, deadly hurricane hit, and their emotional reaction to that event was the only proof they needed to link the two - Climate change is bad; hurricanes are bad; so, they must be connected. This is one of the reasons why there are so many climate change skeptics. If you continually lie to people, people will stop believing what you say. And the climate activists have been dishonest and hyperbolic from the beginning.
In 1989, Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, predicted that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”
In his 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore claimed that due to climate change humanity had only 10 years left before the world would reach a point of no return. And then in 2009, in a speech at the Copenhagen climate change summit, Gore said, “there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
In 2008, James Hansen, the scientist who first warned the UN of global warming said, we were on a “dangerous level” of greenhouse gases, and “we’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path… this is our last chance.” He then went on to say that the polar ice caps would be ice-free in the summer months in 5-10 years, which is no later than 2018.
And in 2018, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously predicted, “The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”
All these predictions have been or are about to be proven false. There is just an aura of dishonesty that hangs over the climate change industry. In 2011, the proponents of climate change cleverly changed the name from “global warming” to “climate change” when they saw that the temperatures were not always rising as they predicted. They disguised their theory with the term “climate change” and not the original “global warming” so they could play both sides - when the Earth’s temperature increases, it’s global warming, but when the Earth’s temperature decreases, it’s climate change. And that is another reason why people are skeptical of “climate change” because when you manipulate the language like that people realize that they too are being manipulated.
Climate scientists declare that there is a consensus in the scientific community that humans are causing climate change, but truth is never discovered through consensus. There was a consensus in the scientific community that Covid-19 did not come from a lab; there was a consensus in the intelligence community that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. And these consensuses have been proven wrong. But climate activists use so-called “scientific consensus” to shut down dissent. Skepticism is not allowed. Everyone must toe the line. Anybody who questions climate science is immediately silenced on social media or mocked and ridiculed into submission. They are trying to win the debate through the mob mentality or herd instinct.
People who deal in the truth welcome debate, embrace questions, and respect skepticism. Those who are lying want to shut down debate, outlaw questions, and vilify skeptics. The climate activists want no debate, no questions. That’s why they always claim, “the science is settled” and “the debate is over”. The proponents of 2+2=4 are not inconsistent; they don’t need to lie; they don’t need to exaggerate, and they welcome debate because they know they are living in the truth. So, climate change proponents if you want people to believe you, then stop acting like liars - stop deceiving, stop manipulating language, and stop strong-arming people. You are destroying the one thing that everyone who wants to be believed needs the most, their credibility.
To be clear, I’m not claiming that global warming does not exist, I am simply saying that until questions like the ones I have posed in this article are answered logically and factually, and the climate activists start being consistent and honest and open to debate, I will always doubt, I will always question, I will always be skeptical. In short, I will act like a scientist, because climate scientists surely are not.
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With RIP on a real climate scientist Dr. Tom Ball, who passed this year at age 82.
Most every area of the mid-latitudes will see summer heat during the high sun angle summer months. Some years the extremes are greater and more persistent. Ocean temperature patterns, solar drivers and local factors including soil moisture, and foehn wind events play a key role in extreme temperatures in summer.
The summer this year June started out on the cool side in many areas including the tropics which averaged -0.65F colder than the 30 year average as measured by satellites. Some warmth was starting to show in the south central U.S and western Europe.
We are in the third year of ‘La Nina’. It is the strongest year of the event. Strong La Ninas have historically been hot and dry in the central states into the east. They produce more tornadoes in the spring and when the Atlantic is warm, more landfalling hurricanes in the east.
Indeed, the heat is augmented where the springs and early summers are drier than normal. The July to September mean temperature anomalies for La Ninas are shown here (CPC).
The Southern plains often see the most persistent heat in La Ninas. So far, there have been 26 100F days in Dallas, TX in 2022. No end is in sight until heavy rains develop and put out the fire. Some showers and storms yesterday lowered maximums a bit yesterday.
See how after a cold spell in May, it has been increasingly hot in Dallas.
Models have more showers the next two weeks. But without an organized event (like a tropical event), it is difficult to get enough rains to suppress highs in mid-summer for longer periods. Dallas since 1950 has had as many as 71 days over 100F.
NUMBER OF 100F DAYS IN DALLAS SINCE 1950
All are La Nina years.
Enlarged
We can see below the hot summers were indeed in strong, multi-year La Ninas (negative MEI v2 (Multivariate ENSO Index) usually found in periods of a negative PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation).
As the Dallas data showed, heat is not a new phenomenon nor getting more frequent. In fact, the warmest decade for Texas and the entire U.S. by far was the 1930s. 22 state/territory all-time heat records still reside in the record books in the 1930s. There have been more record lows since the 1940s than record highs.
In NYC, 7 of the top 10 warmest Julys in Central Park occurred in La Nina summers. The other 3 were in years where ENSO was neutral and/or transitioning to La Nina. As of July 21, CPK has averaged 78.6F. 5 more hot days are forecast before temperature ease.
The current heat wave in the Big Apple in what had been a mostly moderate summer in the first half, will continue to Monday before the typical summer weather returns.
Central Park has had nine 90F days as of July 22, 2022. As many as 39 days have reached that level in the record.
The soil moisture is a key factor in summer. When the soil is dry, the sun’s energy warms the ground and is not consumed in evaporating moisture back into the air. It amplifies any heat building in an amplified pattern.
See the La Nina induced dryness effect on vegetation in the southern plains. Europe like the central US, has found itself in a part of the global wave pattern that has limited rainfall and enhanced the summer temperatures.
The UK is surrounded by water and often that limits the heat. However, the winds turned from off the warm continent into Britain for a few days last week and the temperatures spiked for two days until the maritime influence returned.
Even with the high heat, nights brought some relief. More seasonable air returned. In the UK, cold is a greater danger than heat especially as blackouts threaten in the winter when solar energy is limited given the latitude and cold often comes with little winds at night. Over 20% of the population are in energy poverty, often having to chose between heating and eating. Britain and most countries find 10 to 20 times more people die from cold than heat.
The west U.S. west of the Cascades and to the south the Sierra Nevada normally has natural air conditioner working with the cool waters of the eastern Pacific. Only when a pressure pattern strong enough to force downslope winds does the heat develop to the coast. The air is warmed by compression of the air as it descends into higher pressure near the surface. These episodes are usually brief.
In late June 2021, a three-day heat wave besieged the near coastal areas of the droughty Pacific Northwest as a heat ridge set up in British Colombia on position to cause intermountain heat to sink down to the lower elevations with compression producing all-time record heat. See the brief heat burst in Seattle in late June.
These local heat events are not uncommon and often are found in urban areas near mountains and especially in dry years.
This event led to new record highs in the coastal cities as downslope winds kept the ocean cooling at bay. Triple digit heat is common in summer in the intermountain away from the ocean influence. But occasionally some of that heat makes its way to the coast and is superheated by compression as it sinks downslope.
This event was similar to Sundowner, dubbed a “poison wind,” was reported June 17, 1859, by the Coastal Pilot of California. According to the report, the morning air temperature of 75 to 80 degrees rose steadily until about 1 p.m., when a series of superheated waves of wind blasted the Santa Barbara area.
By 2 p.m., the air temperature reached 133 degrees and hovered there for three hours, killing small animals, destroying fruit, ruining gardens and heavily damaging trees the newspaper reported. That year a similar powerful heat ridge likely forced the wind to sink off the mountains to the north and superheat just as we saw this June.
These events are usually brief and these local oddities not signs of man-made changes.
Many heat records occurred in locations where downslope winds add heat to transitory very warm air masses - found in the east coastal states of the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and even the Antarctic Peninsula.
The metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S., when heat ridges build east from the central in summer experience this compressional warming from downslope winds which also block any sea breezes. Most of the triple digit readings and high records here occur with west to northwest winds.
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Imagine the theory of gravity being determined by a partisan vote. Or a group of politicians ruling on interpretations of the laws of modern physics. Bizarre as those propositions sound, that is what is happening in climate science.
Scientific research is done predominantly in academia, where truth is supposedly established through years of work that is financially supported by government or private entities. Sometimes, the financiers of research desire particular outcomes for their money.
Human nature being what it is, ulterior motives creep into researchers’ methods and results when funding sources have a point view that is made known to scientists applying for grants and working in laboratories. A sort of predeterminism arises where the funder’s interests are given priority over time-proven scientific methodologies.
There are large factions of politicians and scientists committed to a baseless narrative that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity are leading to an apocalyptic warming of Earth. With the enthusiasm of religious zealots and the ruthlessness of the power-mad, a climate industrial complex is driving energy policy on the basis of a hundred or so badly flawed computer models. More than 95 percent of these digital prognosticators have proven unreliable in predicting climatic trends. Yet, they are used anyhow.
In simple terms, the models are designed to exaggerate the potency of atmospheric carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Consequently, the models overstate future warming. The magnification of forecasted warming is revealed by retrospectively comparing model results to actual, historical temperatures.
A 2020 scientific analysis revealed that “models overpredict warming in every target observational analog, in most cases significantly so, and the average differences between models and observations are statistically significant.”
Scientist Ross McKitrick calls out errors of modelers that exaggerate future temperature increases.
“I get it that modeling the climate is incredibly difficult, and no one faults the scientific community for finding it a tough problem to solve,” writes McKitrick. “But we are all living with the consequences of climate modelers stubbornly using generation after generation of models that exhibit too much surface and tropospheric warming, in addition to running grossly exaggerated forcing scenarios.” Forcing is the mechanism by which greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere.)
“in 2005 in the first report of the then-new U.S. Climate Change Science Program, (others) pointed to the exaggerated warming in the tropical troposphere as a ‘potentially serious inconsistency,’” McKitrick says. “But rather than fixing it since then, modelers have made it worse. (The report writers) note that in addition to the wrong warming trends themselves, the biases have broader implications because ‘atmospheric circulation trends depend on latitudinal temperature gradients.’”
Why do researchers continue to use models that are known to exaggerate warming? To produce outcomes that support a view politically popular with the climate obsessed?
It would seem so, given the profit motive and the lucrative nature of the current pernicious cycle: Governments advance their doomsday narrative, scientists and research institutions get grants, the green lobby secures investments and subsidies for uneconomic and ineffective technologies, and political candidates embrace the hysteria in exchange for campaign contributions.
This is all supported by working people who pay excessive taxes and unnecessarily high energy bills. Some employed in the fossil fuel industry pay with loss of livelihoods. The price for the poorest among us - particularly in the developing world - may be lives lost through further impoverishment and early death.
Some climate warmists may be ignorant of science’s corruption. However, others cynically take advantage of it for money and power. At some point, this facade will collapse because of the lack of reality behind it. Nonetheless, we are obligated to do what we can to accelerate the falsehood’s dismantlement if only to honor sacrifices made by others in the name of truth.
In the 16th century, Martin Luther freed millions from the tyranny of a corrupt church by refusing to recant what he knew to be true. He managed to avoid torture and death by fire for his alleged heresies. Others were not so fortunate.
Yet our obligation is deeper than memorializing the past. As biographer Eric Metaxas writes: “In the end, what Luther did was not merely to open a door in which people were free to rebel against their leaders but to open a door in which people were obliged by God to take responsibility for themselves.”
Those who recognize the wrong can do no other than to point it out. And so we do.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va.; and author of “Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know.”
You may be surprised to find an electric vehicle isn’t a new concept. In the early 1800s, inventors around the world began building electric-powered buggies. In 1890, William Morrison built the first electric car in the U.S. The car could go 14 miles per hour and fit six people. Karl Benz in 1885 invented the first gas-powered car, which he later received a patent for in 1886. Benz’s first car had three wheels, looked much like an elongated tricycle and sat two people.
Four-wheeled gas-powered cars were later introduced in 1891. That marked the beginning of the vehicular evolution in America. But there was one problem with early electric vehicles. People were interested in owning them, but the elaborate machines were too expensive for the middle class.
It wasn’t until Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T that automobiles started to resemble what we’re familiar with today. Thanks to Ford’s invention of the assembly line, the gas-powered Model T could be mass-produced and became affordable for the general population.
It was Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T that dealt a blow to the electric car. Introduced in 1908, the Model T made gasoline-powered cars widely available and affordable. By 1912, the gasoline car cost only $650, while an electric roadster sold for $1,750.
Other developments also contributed to the decline of the electric vehicle. By the 1920s, the U.S. had a better system of roads connecting cities, and Americans wanted to get out and explore. With the discovery of Texas crude oil, gas became cheap and readily available for rural Americans, and filling stations began popping up across the country. So many people began driving gasoline cars. In comparison, very few Americans outside of cities had electricity at that time and electric vehicles all but disappeared by 1935.
Fast forward to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages—peaking with the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo—created a growing interest in lowering the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil and finding homegrown sources of fuel.
Automakers began exploring options for alternative fuel vehicles, including electric cars. For example, General Motors developed a prototype for an urban electric car American Motor Company produced electric delivery jeeps that the United States Postal Service used in a 1975 test program. Even NASA helped raise the profile of the electric vehicle when its electric Lunar rover became the first manned vehicle to drive on the moon in 1971.
Yet, the vehicles developed and produced in the 1970s still suffered from drawbacks compared to gasoline-powered cars. Electric vehicles during this time had limited performance—usually topping at speeds of 45 miles per hour—and their typical range was limited to 40 miles before needing to be recharged.
Fast forward again—this time to the 1990s. In the 20 years since the long gas lines of the 1970s, interest in electric vehicles had mostly died down. But new federal and state regulations helped create a renewed interest in electric vehicles in the U.S. Most automakers are focusing on electric and hybrid gas and electric offerings.
EV CARS ARE APPEALING BUT THERE ARE MAJOR CHALLENGES
There are now about 290 million cars registered in the U.S. (here). As of 2020, there were over a million EVs (Electric Vehicles) on the US road (Argonne National Laboratory, 2021). The Edison Electric Institute projected in 2018, that EV stock will reach 18.7 million by 2030.
EVs clearly have benefits. EVs often cost less to maintain because they have fewer and simpler components. They are very quiet. Most provide an exhilarating acceleration experience, thanks to the instant power on tap from the electric motor, or motors. The biggest obstacles for most drivers in addition to the high relative cost are challenges related to the charging.
EVs take a long time to charge. If you don’t drive more than 40-50 miles a day, plugging into a standard “Level 1” 110 volt charger every night could provide enough energy for your daily commute. The standard Level 1 chargers with purchase of an EV add about 2-5 miles of range per hour of charging according to the Department of Energy.
Faster Type 2 charging systems are usually available ‘nearby’ or at your car dealer. Level 2 charging stations have expanded across the country (see).
If not, you can arrange to have level 2 charging station installed at your home. According to the DOE, “the price of Level 2 residential EVSE varies, but typically ranges from $500 to $2,000 before installation and state or utility incentives. Typical charging time for a Level 2 EV charger is around 8 and 10 hours from near empty to full while the average standard Level 1 EV charger will take up to 20 hours to fully charge.”
Kip Hansen warns here “If you need to charge more than 1 car at night home, you may be looking at the rather expensive job of replacing your electrical system from the pole to the main panel (see illustration far above) - new service drop, service point, service entrance wires, service meter (usually supplied by your power company), probably a new service disconnect, and a new service panel. Cost? Up to $5,000.”
The technology will improve with time. DC Fast Electric Charging Stations recharge an EV at a rate of 3 to 20 miles of range per minute. 80% charge in only 20 minutes. But still, full charge may take 1 hour. But importantly, electricity prices will no doubt skyrocket if the move away from hydrocarbon fuels is mandated for automobiles, trucks, businesses, industries and homes.
And you should be aware that as the EIA shows, the cost for electricity varies by state, with the Northeast and California having substantially higher rates than the national average and will feel the pain first and most.
VACATION TRAVEL STRESSES
Right now, EVs are not ideal for drivers with long commutes or even more so for taking long trips - to see Grandma at Thanksgiving, to go to Florida to escape the cold in winter, or a long summer vacation. Planning when and where to charge is a challenge part of any long-distance travel plans. Now with gas cars, we know when we need to exit and fill up. But with EVs, the scarcity of charging stations makes pre-planning a necessity.
Moreover, charging can take hours. Very cold or hot temperatures and cabin climate conditioning reduce driving range and needs to be factored in. Research for the AAA found that when outside temperatures reach 95 degrees F during the summer and AC is used in a vehicle, the driving range can decrease by around 17% and using the heater in an electric vehicle in extreme cold, can reduce the driving range up to 41%. See stories on disappointing range and recharge scarcity disruptions here and here.
CASE STUDY EXAMPLE
My daughter, her husband and three granddaughters took an 11-day post COVID vacation this June from New England south to Florida in a carefully planned trip that covered 3,100 miles in 12 states with stays in 7 hotels in 5 states, visits to 9 parks, amusement park, kayak trips. They filled gas tank 11 times for a total fill time of 55 minutes often at the planned stop or along the highway mostly timed for a meal.
If they had an EV vehicle given the time of year with 90 degree heat, they would have had to stop 19 times to charge and the time to charge could exceed 93 hours! That does not include waiting time for a station. Finding charging stations would require a lot of planning. Even if the temperatures were not extreme (fall or spring weather), the charging would be required 16 times for a total over 77 hours. Some vacation.
For this family adventure, a hybrid would make more sense.
Ironically recall that cheap gasoline and the unavailability of electricity outside big cities a century ago led to the demise of electric vehicles and the gasoline car boom. The charging challenges will lead to ‘resistance’ unless addressed. And the need for truck and off-road (farm, construction, mining, marine, etc) fuel will remain.
Any attempt at a transition to electric in trucking is a huge challenge. 15.5 million trucks operate in the U.S.. Of this figure 2 million are tractor trailer. The United States economy depends on trucks to deliver nearly 70 percent of all freight transported annually in the U.S., accounting for $671 billion worth of manufactured and retail goods transported by truck in the U.S. alone. Add $295 billion in truck trade with Canada and $195.6 billion in truck trade with Mexico. Trucks alter routes to avoid potential storm impacts. Now they will have consider charging challenges. As with every other policy, they are taking steps before technology or needed supplies are ready.
Importantly, Rivian Automotive in a Wall Street Journal story warned that the industry could soon face a shortage of battery supplies for electric vehicles “90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist.”
BUT WE ARE TOLD “WE MUST ACT NOW TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE”
The rationale for high gas costs and now is to drive the transition to electric vehicles. They claim that is required to reduce greenhouse related warming and extreme weather.
In the Research Report entitled: On the Validity of NOAA, NASA and Hadley CRU Global Average Surface Temperature Data & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding, Abridged Research Report, Dr. James P. Wallace III, Dr. (Honorary) Joseph S. D’Aleo, Dr. Craig D. Idso, June 2017 (here) provided ample evidence that the Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) data was invalidated for use in climate modeling and for any other climate change policy analysis purpose.
”The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments, that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever - despite current claims of record setting warming.”
See here how all the extremes listed as man caused are explained by natural factors here. The deaths have declined over the last century (EMDAT 2017) not increased as alleged.
THE PRESCRIBED POLICY CHANGES ARE THE REAL DANGERS
For one, instead of diminishing costs and emissions, the changes will cause all forms of energy to skyrocket and it is likely as we see in Europe, it will force power companies to utilize coal as fracking bans limit the availability of clean natural gas. Electricity prices would triple by the end of this decade.
Moreover, the following analysis shows such a forced transition would instead force an increase in the number of power generation and power stations (first guess 25-35%) just to provide the energy for EVs. This would accelerate and magnify price rises.
RENEWABLES ARE NOT DEPENDABLE ENOUGH TO LIGHT THE WAY
With the war on fossil fuels, unreliable wind and solar can’t fill the gap. We saw a preview of that in Texas in 2021 when sub-zero cold and snow hit and knocked out wind power.
In many European nations they learned their lessons from sitting in the cold and dark too often in winter when ‘intermittents’ could not meet demand. They built coal plants for addressing base load demand. They then moved to clean natural gas imported from Russia. A return to coal burning and nuclear plants are planned in the upcoming winter because over interruption of natural gas due to the Russian/Ukraine war. Europe has been down the green path more aggressively and some countries are realizing they may have put the cart before the horse in thinking wind and solar could eliminate hydrocarbon fuel use. They are planning coal usage this winter to keep the lights on in cold outbreaks.
The elitists can afford ways to keep the lights on and house warm. Obama we are told has sought approval to install 3 propane tanks (totaling 2,500 gallons) at his Martha’s Vineyard Estate.
What is your back-up when the lights go out. How far can you drive in your new EV with no way to recharge? If we go down the path the New World Order religion want us to go, the rest of us may find we must go back to candles and horse-drawn carriages.
Resources: ENERGY.GOV here and here, IDRIVESAFELY here. PIWINENERGY.COM here
Already paying some of the highest energy costs in the country, New Hampshire ratepayers will soon be paying a lot more. According to a filing with the Public Utilities Commission, Liberty Utilities is seeking approval for an increase in the default residential energy rate from 8.393 cents per kilowatt-hours to 22.223 cents per kilowatt-hours. Donald Kreis, with New Hampshire’s Office of Consumer Advocate, said the net effect of the charge will be that Granite Staters who use Liberty can expect to pay nearly 50 percent more for electricity when the new rate goes into effect in August. “That means a typical bill for a residential electric customer of Liberty Utilities will go up by nearly 47 percent from its current level,” Kreis said on Twitter.
Granite Staters already pay the seventh-highest residential electricity rates in the nation.
Liberty has about 43,000 electric customers in New Hampshire. Kreis said Eversource, New Hampshire’s main electric supplier, is expected to file for a similar rate increase before the PUC soon. “To my knowledge, these huge default service prices are unprecedented since NH broke up its vertically integrated electric utilities more than 20 years ago,” he wrote on Twitter. He said on Twitter the reason for the rate increases is the rising cost of natural gas, which electric supplies use to generate the power needed. “In New England, we rely on natural gas for the majority of our electricity. Natural gas futures prices for the coming winter have hit $30 per mmBTU. Wholesale electric suppliers have priced those natural gas increases into their bids,” he wrote.
Reached Wednesday, Kreis said New Hampshire doe not have a robust natural gas market for homeowners, the state uses a lot of natural gas to fuel power plants, like the Granite Ridge power facility in Londonderry. Unitil, one of the state’s two other electric utilities, has rates currently at around 10.3 cents per kilowatt-hour and is on a different rate schedule than the other two companies. New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, the second-largest utility in the state, expects to adjust its power supply rate later this summer.
“It’s safe to say that we’re seeing the same dynamics playing out in the New England electric wholesale market. Costs for summer supply are up dramatically from last year, driven primarily by huge increases in the price of natural gas, which is used to generate about half of the power in New England,” said NHEC Communications Administrator Seth Wheeler.
The rate increases coming from Liberty and Eversource far outpace predictions from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The winter electricity forecast saw a price rise in New England closer to 16 percent, not 47 percent. “We expect the summer increases in retail residential electricity prices will range from an increase of 2.4 percent in the West South-Central region to a 16.1 percent increase in New England,” the EIA forecast states. Kreis said utilities buy power from suppliers in six-month increments, and the rate increases reflect the increased prices they are paying for power under the new six-month contracts, which will start in August. There won’t be another chance to change the rates until next year, meaning prices will remain high until 2023.
New Hampshire’s elected officials have taken note. On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu and Department of Energy Commissioner Jared Chicoine announced that, for the first time ever, the state plans to use Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding to help struggling households pay for summer electricity costs. The funding will be routed through the New Hampshire Fuel Assistance Program for pre-qualified, low-income households.
“We are allocating $7.5 million in funds to provide low-income families with assistance to help cool their homes this summer,” said Governor Chris Sununu. “As a result of unprecedented Washington spending that has unleashed record inflation, uncertainty in the energy market following President Biden’s anti-domestic energy policies, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, energy prices are skyrocketing across the country. While there is not much that states can do to rebuff federal inaction, we are doing what we can at the state level to ease the burden on low-income families.”
Details of the plan, including the exact amount of funding available per family, are still being developed. “The Department of Energy is working diligently with stakeholders to provide summer electric bill assistance to currently-eligible LIHEAP customers,” said Department of Energy Commissioner Jared Chicoine. “We are hopeful that this assistance will help provide some relief to consumers in these challenging times.” Kreis said in the short term consumers should shop around for competitive electric suppliers and lobby their municipalities to enter into power aggregation deals to lower the costs. They can also apply for the state’s energy efficiency programs. New Hampshire energy consumers are looking at a tough winter ahead, too. Home heating oil is selling for close to $6 a gallon, up from about $4.50 a gallon average this past winter, and $3 a gallon from the prior season. Relief is a long way off, as the EIA expects the 2023 winter season to see heating oil back down to under $4 a gallon.
Craig Stevens, a spokesman with the energy and business coalition, Grow America’s Infrastructure Now, said Democratic environmental and energy policies, like restricting domestic energy production, have pushed prices higher.
“The rise in electricity prices is, unfortunately, much too predictable considering the energy policies of the past two Democratic administrations promised - and have since delivered - Americans. Between Presidents Obama and Biden, they have forced the shuttering of power plants across the country, made the siting and construction of transmission lines virtually impossible, stopped pipeline expansion, and closed off domestic energy production,” Stevens said. “We need more than vapid rhetoric, empty promises, and finger-pointing; we need a comprehensive - all of the above - energy policy that recognizes our current energy needs and the growing energy needs of our increasingly electrified economy.”
With prices likely to remain high through to next year, Kreis said New Hampshire ultimately needs to diversify how it generates power in order to avoid another year like 2022.
