When Government GEVeth, Government Can TakEV Away

GM, Ford and Stellantis all jumped on the EV bandwagon in compliance with President Biden's edict to shift to electric vehicles.  The edict came with the carrot of many government subsidies for doing so, including $7,500 direct to each consumer.

The problems that then ensued is that the infrastructure for such vehicles is still not in place even after billions spent by the Biden Administration to force such to be created - only to have it bogged down in  Democrat-created red tape that basically spent the funds to create jobs for Democrat functionaries with little actual results to show for it. Even Democrat cheerleader and mouthpiece John Stewart was appalled. Nor are the vehicles themselves suitable to fully replace ICE vehicles on a one-for-one basis.

But the market for electric vehicles was pretty much created and expanded by these edicts and subsidies.  Now that President Trump's administration has ended the taxpayer give-aways and drunken spending on electric cars, economic reality has set in.

The current limits on electric cars still make them a niche vehicle that are only good for certain conditions - and not for the Democrat-Greenie-demanded total replacement of internal combustion engine vehicles.

The results are that the manufacturers that went all-in and complied with the Biden Administration's edict and promise of government subsidies while ignoring economics and the actual current use case for electric vehicles are now realizing reality:

The Detroit News: Stellantis writes down $26.5 billion from EV investments

Yahoo Finance: What Ford Motor (F)'s $19.5 Billion EV Reset and Hybrid Pivot Means For Shareholders

 GM Authority:  GM Writing Down Another $6 Billion For Cutting Back On EV Investments

 Jumping on the Biden EV bandwagon cost the automakers over $58 Billion dollars so far and the losses continue to pile up.

Again, EVs do have some niche uses and appeal, but to expect based on government edict and the promise of tax breaks and subsidies alone that they would replace ICE cars and especially work trucks was foolhardy in the extreme. 

Prepare For Greenie-Caused Power Outages In 2032 In Michigan, If Not Before Then

At the same time that the powers-that-be are pushing for electric vehicles that are charged by being plugged into our state electricity grid, those same officials are pushing to eliminate our baseline power generation for that grid, both nuclear and coal, and replace it with far less reliable and more expensive "renewables".

The Detroit Free Press: DTE Energy to move up retirement of its coal-fired Monroe Power Plant by 3 years

Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. announced a clean energy plan Wednesday that includes moving up the retirement of its coal-fired Monroe Power Plant . . .

he Monroe Plant, along with the Belle River Power Plant in St. Clair County, are DTE's last remaining coal-fired plants. The two produce 40% of the overall power the utility provides to its 2.3 million electric customers in southeast Michigan.

DTE also has said it plans to stop burning coal at its Belle River Power Plant, making the Monroe Plant its last remaining coal-fired power plant.

So, DTE will eliminate its reliable baseline that is producing 40% of its power nice and consistently and replace it with solar and wind.

Consumers Energy is apparently going to follow suit, and generate 90% of its power load form renewables.

We're already seeing an increase in electric prices this year from 3-7 pm with a new "time of use" rate to deal with peak demand and because they already can't generate enough electricity to meet the demand.  

Just wait until electric cars start being adopted heavily, whether by government fiat or not, and are plugged into the grid, and the demand go even higher -- just in time for the reliable baseload to disappear in the name of progressive greenie nirvana.

That Subsidy Could Have Bought An Awful Lot of New Power Plants

The Detroit News: Germany to spend billions to tackle high energy prices

Green dreams tend to end up in power supply nightmares, don't they?

Germany plans to spend up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) helping consumers and businesses cope with surging energy prices, particularly for natural gas, due to the war in Ukraine.

Note this doesn't actually tackle high energy prices and does nothing to address the supply issue, it merely papers over it for consumers and has the government pay for the increase that is due to lousy planning on the German government's part when it comes to energy.  It's just a lot of spent money to kick the can down the road and not address the problem.

At approximately $4 Billion per reactor in construction costs (Nuclear power plants apparently are very expensive to build but relatively inexpensive to run), that money could have built 48 Nuclear plants and had money left over for operations of them.

Pity Germany embraced outsourcing its power generation and power supplies to a rather unreliable supplier in Russia.  

Even better, remember how they smirked and outright laughed at Trump when he noted their reliance on Russian gas was a bad idea. Who is laughing now?

Green Dreams And Brownouts

 This is what happens when the greenies in power think electricity comes from skittles and unicorn farts.

Gov. Whitmer has been on a binge being against coal and nuclear and  focusing on the rather unreliable renewable and with magic thinking expecting solar and wind to eventually cover 100% of the state's energy needs. 

So while eschewing coal and nuclear, refusing to allow the building of coal and nuclear plants and having magic thinking instead of actually heeding reality and "following the science", Michgian is gonna get this:

The Detroit Free Press: With summer heat and storms brewing, some say Michigan is headed for brownouts

The reality is there is currently insufficient power generation to keep up with the projected demand.

Even worse, two coal plants are being shut down, and  the Pallisades nuclear plant is now shut down  taking plenty of clean, reliable power offline right when it is needed the most.  That the nuclear plant provides electricity and needed to stay open to prevent a loss of capacity. 

Gov. Whitmer was all for the shutdown before she was against it.

So, she decided to grandstand and ask it to stay open long after the decision to shut it down was made ,and the shut down was underway in the final stages and she did far too little and too late to keep it open and the closing was assured before she spoke up.  She had 4 years to speak up against the closing and plan for it, and she wholly failed to do so.  Her "attempt" if you can call it that to avert the shutdown seems to be more for show than anything else.

But don't worry, I'm sure Gov. Whitmer and her greenie allies will have all the infrastructure and power generation available for charging all those Electric Vehicles they're pushing.   If you believe that, I  have a nice bridge for sale that's linking the Michigan peninsulae together that's in great shape.

Hindsight Is 2022

Ah,  the good old days when Europeans laughed at Trump and America's simplisme. Watch them smirk at the clearly horridly gauche demand that Europe increase military speeding to be able to meaningfully contribute to their own defense, and quit their reliance on Russian gas as they let their Greenies eliminate other sources of energy.

Ript: 2018: GERMANY AT UN LAUGHED AT WARNINGS OF RUSSIAN GAS RELIANCE

That attitude really didn't age well,  now did it?  Yet again Trump was right and the bien pensants were rather badly wrong.  

But hey, no mean tweets, amirite?

So Texas, How's The Preview Of The Green New Deal Working Out For You?

So it turns out windmills don't handle icing conditions very well. Solar doesn't do well when covered in snow or in overcast conditions either.

MSN :   Texas electric grid operator says frozen wind turbines are hampering state's power output: report

About half of Texas' wind power generation capacity has been put on ice amid the state's historic winter storm, according to a report.

Oops. Add to that a sudden demand for natural gas for heating instead of electricity generation and there's not enough capacity to provide power.

It's definitely a cautionary tale of over-reliance on unreliable sources of energy such as solar and wind.    It's another cautionary tale of the failure to maintain and build an energy infrastructure able to keep up with the demand and have enough at the margins to handle an emergency. 

Pushing for the Green New Deal and not building reliable nuclear power and clean coal plants instead of expensive and unreliable wind and solar are going to end up putting us all in the dark and cold.

While California Is Undergoing An Electric Power Shortage With No Expected Relief In Sight

Governor Newsom announces that by 2035 only electric cars may be sold as new vehicles in California.

The Detroit News: California moves to end sales of new gas-powered cars

California will halt sales of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday, a move he says will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35% in the nation’s most populous state.

 As there's no simultaneous push to increase reliable electric power generation in the state of California to meet the demand of all these new electric cars, and they can't even keep up with electrical demand as it stands now.

  I think we can have a pretty good idea as to how this is going to end up.

The Dem's Soylent Green New Deal

Ocassional-Cortex released her Green New Deal position paper and it's a doozy.

About the only thing its missing preventing it from becoming a path to a perfect utopia is a demand that the population of the cities be driven into the fields to work on communal farms.

I figure that'll be phase 2.

Reading the overview, from her office quite a few things stand out (Note they have since taken this down, but the Internet is kinda forever):

Ending air travel and replacing it with rail. Shows a complete lack of comprehension about economics, efficiency and the fiscal and engineering impossibility of running high speed rail track to every community in the United States. Its a monorail sales pitch all the way down.

Banning nuclear power - if they were actual environmentalists they'd know that nuclear is pretty darn clean and about the only reasonable and reliable alternative to fossil fuels.

Banning all fossil fuels and going to all "clean renewables" so under this plan prepare for power outages and brownouts in your area soon, comrade.

Even better is the communist approach to the Green New Deal, less environment and more about total state, union and Democrat control of the economy:

Build on FDR’s second bill of rights by guaranteeing:
Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work

Read that one again.

Funding for it is blithely suggested to be done by the Fed simply printing money and incurring trillions and trillions of debt, not to mention all Green New Deal Jobs are to be union jobs under this scheme.

Hilariously, the position paper even admits that even if all the vilified billionaires and all companies in the US kicked in, it still wouldn't be enough money, only running the printing presses in overdrive might produce enough. Economics and reality really doesn't work that way. Basically this is impossible crony socialism at its worst.

Yep, its a watermelon plan all right. Green on the outside, red on the inside.

Anyone who believes in this nonsense is gullible at best to be charitable.