Caught between their fallacies and their obsessions

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Sept 20

The Ford Motor Company signed a deal with the Ontario and Federal governments in which, in return for $500 Million from the governments, Ford would invest $1.8 Billion of its own money into the Ford Oakville assembly plant to assemble battery powered cars and assemble batteries there as well.  The Spectator editorial praised the agreement, saying that the plant will provide alternatives for "Canadians who desire to ditch their emissions-spewing gas guzzlers" and claimed that "there is a strong and widely held belief that climate change is a "real and existential threat to the future of life on this planet."

Well, speaking of spewing emissions and gas....  Still, I never understood how people's opinions and beliefs had a bearing on scientific facts, such as the reality of climate change, the future of life on this planet, and whether man was responsible.

I just shake my head when feminist-studies majors go gaga over electric cars.  They know nothing, and they’ve learned nothing.

Years ago, Spectator cartoonist Graeme MacKay drew a picture that captured the fallacy of large numbers of electric cars.  It was of a car connected to a coal-burning power plant spewing smoke into the atmosphere and a proud driver smiling obvious to the pollution his driving was creating.

That’s the fallacy of switching from the internal combustion engine to electric in large numbers: where are you going to get the electricity to recharge the batteries?  Don’t talk to me about wind and solar, because every one of these ridiculously expensive sources of power require a fast-recycle natural gas power plant to back them up when they aren’t producing name-plate power, which is most of the time.

As I wrote in January, 1996, a commitment to get rid of fossil fuels requires massive new construction of nuclear power generation.  So, let’s hear it for 1,000 new megawatts of CANDU II electrical generation.  You’re going to need a lot to replace the power of all that gasoline burnt in millions of cars.  How many scores of billions of government dollars will have to be spent building nuclear generators just to make obsolete those billions of private dollars spent on refineries?

Fossil fuels will always be the economical choice for powering cars.  The environmentalists are once again caught between their fallacies and obsessions.

-30-