Category: Eco-Crap

Not Ready For Prime Time, Perhaps?

Eco-Crap, Travels

From the Heart Of Stone Department comes this report:

A couple who embarked on an eco-friendly voyage across the Atlantic were found dead in a lifeboat after seemingly being forced to abandon their yacht.

Brett Clibbery, 70, and British woman Sarah Justine Packwood, 54, were reported missing after setting off from Nova Scotia in Canada in their 42ft sailing boat Theros on June 11 – and were found last week in a washed-up liferaft.

The couple’s remains were found on Sable Island, nicknamed the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic‘, 180 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, the liferaft having washed ashore. They had intended to sail to the Azores 900 miles west of Portugal.

Thanks, but if I am going to cross the ocean by sea, I’ll use one of these, despite the effect on Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©:

…as long as it’s not captained by someone named “Edward Smith”, because the last time that happened, we ended up with a shitty James Cameron movie (is there another kind?).

Commonsense, Swedish Style

Eco-Crap

When even the Swedes come to realize it’s all bullshit:

Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.

On Tuesday the country modified its net zero targets to 100% “fossil-free” which its right-leaning government creates the conditions for the return of nuclear power to the country’s energy mix.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in parliament.

Observers said the decision implicitly acknowledges the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.

Here’s the wake-up call:

“Living close to Russia focuses the mind, and the Swedish people not only wish to join NATO, but also to ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither.”

I should point out that the vast majority of Sweden’s electricity generation comes from hydro-electric dams already, so calling converting the tiny fraction left into “fossil-free” generation is not only eminently doable, but largely irrelevant.

Also, a reminder from a little further south:

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I should point out that the above operation was okayed by Germany’s Green Party, surely the most eco-addled political party in Europe.

Guess that Russian gas pipeline closure hurt.

Coercion

Eco-Crap, Government Thugs, Gummint

None of this nonsense is going to happen, but it sure won’t be for lack of trying…

Joe Biden issued the most radical environmental rules in American history to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles and force customers to drive ineffective electric cars. Now, a new report has revealed the effort to finish off the gas-powered car is well-underway in eight states.

The rules being adopted in these states specify that only zero-emission vehicles, which include electric vehicles and certain plug-in hybrids, can be sold beginning with the 2035 model year. This is known as the Advanced Clean Cars II rule.

And the Crazy Eight?

California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. The District of Columbia has also signed off.

Here’s the map, with my addition:

I’m just amazed that Illinois hasn’t joined the other Socialist Soviets (yet).  No doubt ILGov Fatboi Pritzker is working on it.

Hey, maybe they’ll get Texas to join up…

On a more serious note:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized aggressive emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively require huge increases in the numbers of electric or zero-emission buses and trucks sold over the next decade.

Uh-huh.  Just the thought of all those 18-wheelers changing to electric power makes me really want to pee myself, just not with laughter.

Or start boiling the tar and oiling the rope, whatever.

As a wise man said:

Lies? Oh No!

Drive Time, Eco-Crap, Lies and Untruths

Say it ain’t so:

Electric cars have up to a third less battery life than advertised when driven in real-life conditions, an investigation has found. 

The official figures provided by car manufacturers for how many miles an EV can drive on full charge are based on a standardised test done only in warm conditions. 

But an investigation by What Car magazine has found that when the cars are driven in the real-world, particularly in colder temperatures, their batteries go flat much faster. 

In other revelatory news, politicians’ promises aren’t to be trusted, he won’t call you next time he’s in town, and she does love you just for your money, Mr. Murdoch.

Good News / Bad News

Business, Eco-Crap, Watermelons

Good news for us wot loves those internal combustion engines in our cars, bad news for EVs and their watermelon supporters:

Rivian Lays Off 10% Of Workforce As Lucid Production Underwhelms

EV startup stocks Rivian (RIVN) and Lucid (LCID) sank Thursday after both companies reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue late Wednesday, and announced they are not ramping up production in 2024.

Rivian reported Wednesday a loss of $1.36 per share in Q4 with sales doubling to $1.31 billion. Wall Street expected a loss of $1.35 and revenue totaling $1.28 billion. Looking to 2024, Rivian said it expects production of 57,000 vehicles, remaining flat compared with 2023.

The company also announced that it predicts vehicle deliveries in Q1 2024 to be about 10%-15% lower than in Q4 2023 and that it is laying off 10% of its salaried workers.

Along with Rivian, Lucid reported Wednesday a Q4 loss of 29 cents per share with revenue falling 39% to $157 million. Analysts predicted a loss of 30 cents and sales hitting $180 million. Lucid produced 8,428 vehicles in 2023 and delivered 6,001.

For 2024, the company forecasts producing 9,000 vehicles, well below Wall Street’s expectations of more than 14,000.

Yeah, nobody wants to buy them now (even at subsidy-lowered prices), and still fewer will buy them when said subsidies disappear and the costs of these boutique vehicles assume a trajectory opposite to Rivian/Lucid’s share prices.

And the children will laugh and play, in the playgrounds to which they were driven in their mommies’ gasoline-powered SUVs:

And the oil rigs will pump again, their oil being carried along the completed XL pipeline, filling up cars will no longer require a letter of credit from the banks, natural gas will flow into people’s houses in greater amounts and at lowered prices, windmills and solar panel farms will rust away and fall over, and nuclear power generators will become a feature of every town in the land.

And the watermelon socialists who supported the whole Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© pack of lies will dangle limply from lamp poles in many streets, those that did escape the Air Pinochet helicopter flights, said choppers fueled with the cheaper avgas and therefore able to fly many missions…

Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?  So mote it be.