And Important Read on EVs for Hands on DIYers

More Wisedom from a Successful Professional in the Energy Business.

Sure…. you’ve read article after article about how cool Electric Vehicles are, and how they’re our future.  One of the first things to annoy a real hands-on DIYer is the fact that many who promote EVs seem to have no real grasp of ‘ENERGY REALITY’. One of the first clues is they typically jump right to the efficiency of the MOTOR, and then compare it to the efficiency of today’s gasoline ‘engines’ as if a motor and an engine have some equivalence! Of course we know that the Motor requires and external power source and an honest comparison requires we measure the BTUs in, and proper accounting of the losses all along the way. Try and talk nuts and bolts with a Greenie and they’ll usually wave their hands and say.. “doesn’t matter, it’s all an investment in our future”.

In my State of Washington, Green is a very fashionable color, and if you dare try and inject reality into the conversation in Seattle, you will be demonized and made out as someone who is trying to spoil the party.

Our Governor, Senators, and others have very effectively used the misguided enthusiasm of Seattle (our population center) to transfer wealth and property to green causes via subsidies and grants. We need to leave it up to each individual as to whether the Governor and her friends are this naive, or is it the money and influence they gain throught their support? How many Energy Producer Professionals are investing in Green Energy, and why?

Here’s this months comment from CEO Gary Smith of PowerSouth, a man who has a track record of connecting the dots, and certainly a man who understands Energy and Electrical/Mechanical realities.

When I was young — before cable television, before computers, before DVDs and before the Internet — we read books and worked puzzles.

One popular thing was books that contained pages of numbered dots and hints of what the
picture would be once you connected them. We would look at the dots, guess what the
picture would be, and then connect the dots. Of course, the picture would be crude, but an
image would be formed.

You never see those puzzles anymore, but the saying “connect the dots” is still used to
express the process of looking at something and understanding how the image comes
together as the dots are connected. As I read about events in Washington,
sometimes I wonder if anyone there ever played “connect the dots.”

This week, Senator Debbie Stabenow, (D-Mich.), proposed legislation that would give
car purchasers a $7,500 cash rebate from the government for the purchase of an electric
vehicle like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. She stated, “These vehicles represent the jobs of the future, and the more that are sold, the more Michigan jobs will be created.” The bill follows the White House’s plan to have one million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015.

Senator Stabenow’s legislation also contains a provision that provides businesses that invest in electric trucks a $15,000 to $100,000 tax credit, depending upon the size of the truck. Senator Stabenow states, “This bill provides a tremendous economic potential that will allow Michigan innovation to continue to out- compete the world and create new jobs here.” I always thought that out-competing meant providing a better product at a lower cost. I guess that doesn’t apply in Michigan anymore — all that is really important now is a large government subsidy that promotes the sale of certain vehicles with our tax dollars.

In essence, Senator Stabenow’s bill would take our tax dollars from the South and use them to create thousands of jobs in Michigan. In fact, she is right — more cars sold mean more Michigan jobs created and more of our taxes being sent to Michigan.

Where does the fuel come from to power these new, modern subsidized cars and trucks? As the senator from Michigan and the White House conjure up ways to promote Michigan
jobs through subsidies, the EPA plots to close down coal-fired generation plants that provide about 50 percent of the country’s electricity.

If those plants are closed as advocated by environmental groups and EPA Administrator
Lisa Jackson, there will not be sufficient electric power to provide electric service as
we know it today, much less power a million plug-in electric cars and trucks. Have Senator
Stabenow or the White House connected those dots?

Occasionally, when we were doing those connect the dot puzzles, something would
happen and we would lose our way, get out of sequence and the picture would make no
sense at all. I still remember the frustration and confusion about what went wrong.

It is obvious that Senator Stabenow doesn’t know how to connect the dots and make a
picture, unless of course that picture is using tax dollars to create jobs for people that can
vote for her. Maybe she knows how to connect the dots after all.

Gary

Back to  GB comment and Washington State news… We have a coal fired powered plant in Western Washington that the Governor is in Favor of shutting down, I expect to hear about the new green jobs program that will be implemented in that community to replace all those jobs lost at the power plant, they’ll likely be retrained to make something that no one will be willing to buy,  and of course subsidies will pay for it. If you haven’t figured it out yet, that means you and your children will be paying their wages and benefit package, and it will likely be better than what you currently have.  Print Print Print, Spend Spend Spend, and demonize anyone who tries to tell you it’s a road to disaster. Pick up a history book, you can read about the road ahead… this has all happened before, only the dates are different.

Those folks who put “in God we trust” on our currency? The message was more about who they didn’t trust, and if you don’t get it by now, you soon will.

G