Electric Cars Won’t Save the Planet
by Greg Ganske
Little boys love to play with their toy cars and grown men love their real ones. Ask a guy about his first car and his eyes get misty. My first was a 1949 Hudson that held the entire high school golf team, then came a 1960 TR-3 with no heater, followed by a “Just Married” MGB-GT, a midlife red ‘89 Vette, and now a retired guy’s 2015 Stingray for rallies. I even used a 1958 DeSoto (the year my opponent had first gone to Congress) to show how long my opponent had been in elected office while I promoted term limits. Campaign Magazine called this best 1994 campaign gimmick.
GREG GANSKE’S INTERNAL COMBUSTION CAMPAIGN CAR, 1994
The American love affair with the automobile is possible because of the development of the gasoline driven internal combustion engine (ICE). The ICE is a machine that converts the chemical energy in hydrocarbon fuel into the mechanical energy of a rotating drive shaft. In the spark-ignition engine, octane and oxygen combine in an exothermic reaction to produce the energy to propel the car. This reaction makes carbon dioxide and water. And therein lies the problem with fossil fuel cars and the push for electric vehicles (EVs) in concern about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming.
The Biden Administration wants to do away with the ICE automobile with its beautifully refined mechanisms of block, cylinders, pistons, rings, connecting rods, crankshaft, stroke, cycles and exhaust systems that 100 years of mechanical innovation have givens us. Instead we are being sold on huge batteries to power EVs ((with fake exhaust sounds) and the $trillions it will take to convert our auto fleets and refueling stations.
Our lives and the economy are dependent on energy but it’s as if the Biden administration wants to destroy both. Every day we see new rules and regulations being proposed from banning gas stoves to light bulbs to dishwashers that don’t clean and now draconian clean air rules for automobiles and trucks.
The Environmental Protection Agency just proposed stricter emissions standards starting in 2027 that would require auto makers to boost sales of electric vehicles which accounted for just 5.8% of sales in 2022 to above 50% in 2030 and 67% in 2032. Just this last week the EPA proposed a rule that amounts to a death sentence for fossil fuel power plants by requiring carbon capture and green hydrogen technologies that aren’t cost effective or feasible. Forcing fossil-fuel plants, which provide more than 60 % of our electricity compared to 19% for wind and solar, to shut down will further endanger grid reliability. The Supreme Court blocked the Obama Clean Power Plan last summer which outlawed coal. We can only hope the Supreme Court will declare the Biden EPA plan unconstitutional, too.
The Biden administration’s war on internal combustion automobiles and jihad against natural gas electric plants won’t work. As a former member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee let me count a few of the ways that forcing taxpayers to subsidize EVs and making manufacturers abandon the ICE is poor policy.
The electricity to charge an electric vehicle has to come from somewhere. EVs switch auto pollution to increased demand from power plants. The more EVs, the more electricity we need from power plants and the more pollution we get from power plants. Driving an EV in China where coal is by far the largest power plant fuel only increases demand from fossil fuel power plants. China is currently bringing two coal powered electric plants per week into production. If our government pays us to use less fossil fuel in the form of subsidies, it lowers the price of fossil fuels world wide which means that we are paying people in other countries to use more. Our policy is subsidizing the Chinese.
The effect of mandating EVs in the U.S. will result in negligible decrease in global CO2 emissions. The U.S. has only 12% of the world’s automobile fleet. Globally personal cars are a majority of gas driven vehicles but commercial vehicles account for most of the emissions as personal vehicles aren’t in use much of the time. A recent Wall Street Journal article estimated the Biden plan for swapping out a gasoline engine for a battery for the U.S. with 12% of the world’s fleet would eliminate only 0.18% of lifetime vehicle emissions.
It takes a lot of energy and natural resources to make an EV. Besides the energy it takes to dig lithium’s enormous pits, digging a ton of lithium requires 500,000 liters of water with contaminated wastewater runoff. Massive mining operations in South American threaten their environment if not ours. In addition, each battery requires a mile of copper wiring which requires increased copper mining.
Manufacturing the average EV battery weighing 1,200 pounds produces 70% more carbon dioxide than building an internal combustion engine gasoline powered car. EV trucks will have batteries that weigh 5,000 pounds and reduce the amount of cargo that is limited by law to 80,000 pounds per truck. This will then require more electricity consuming trips. Battery packs make EVs 33% heavier than ICE vehicles and increase the risk of injury and death from collisions with heavier vehicles.
The batteries have unique problems that ICEs don’t. “Thermal runaway” of batteries can cause intense and unpredictable battery fires. A Norwegian ferry does not allow EVs on board because of the fire hazard. EV fires are very difficult to put out and use 40 times more water to douse an EV than a burning ICE engine. Unless homeowners install dedicated circuits, the charging station may represent increased fire risk. The cost of home-charging materials and installation adds $thousands to the cost of using Evs.
EV batteries may last 10-20 years but hotter climates and faster charging can overheat the battery and reduce life expectancy. A replacement battery can range from $5,000 to $20,000. If the battery is damaged or no longer functional where does it go? Much of the materials in an EV battery can’t be economically recyled. Will landfills fill up with lithium batteries potentially contaminating our water supplies?
EV ranges are short; actual ranges are shorter than advertised by 12.5%. Travel ranges are shorter in the summer when using air conditioning but also in the winter when cold batteries are less efficient. Could you be stranded in a snowstorm? If you tow a trailer, expect up to 70% less range.
America’s electric grid already faces shortfalls with blackouts when demand peaks in summer or winter. Increased demand from EVs will strain our grid unless there is massive spending to increase capacity. America lacks charging infrastructure, especially in rural areas. In June 2022 there were almost 1.5 million registered EVs and about 130,000 charging stations. Using a Level 2 charger it takes 7-10 hours to fully charge. Faster charging stations will be necessary but decrease the life of the battery.
The International Energy Agency calculates that throughout the life of an EV it will emit less CO2 emissions that an ICE vehicle but the break even point for switching to an electric car can range from 5 to 15 years. Drivers usually switch cars every 8 years. Your EV vehicle will need to last longer to make it pay. . .if the battery lasts that long.
EVs are more expensive. The average price for an ICE vehicle is $48,000, the average price for an EV is over $65,000. Increasing subsidies only mean that middle class taxpayers are subsidizing EVs for the wealthy. Finally, by pushing EVs the Biden administration leaves U.S. transportation at the mercy of China which controls 75% the supply chains of critical materials needed for EV battery manufacturing. You can bet the Biden Administration and the NIMBY (not in my back yard) phenomena will limit lithium mining in the U.S.
Instead of misguided energy dictates, the Biden Administration should focus on increasing carbon dioxide free nuclear power for the electric grid. But that is a topic for another day. Americans who love their ICE cars are not buying the EV hype. Less than twenty per cent say it’s likely they will buy an electric vehicle. The Biden Administration should think twice about forcing us to abandon our internal combustion “Lizzie” for EV “Sparky.”
