The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. - Maximilien Robespierre.

Showing posts with label batteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label batteries. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

The EV Graveyard Reckoning, Hardly Anyone Wants To Buy A Used One

 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
via Zero Hedge

The market for used EVs is plummeting. What will car rental companies do with the used ones? Problems started in China but have spread to Europe and the US.

Hoot of the Day

EV graveyards are a result of unconstrained capitalism.

Mercy!

The Chinese government literally forced people to buy the damn things. Biden is attempting the same in the US.

That article is from August. Let’s flash forward to December 21 to see how things are going in Europe.

No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too

What started in China is not limited to China. A second Bloomberg article reveals No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too

Because most new vehicles in Europe are sold via leases, automakers and dealers who finance these transactions are trying to recover losses from plummeting valuations by raising borrowing costs. That’s hitting demand in some European markets that were in the vanguard of the shift away from fossil fuel-powered propulsion. Some of the biggest buyers of new cars, including rental firms, are cutting back on EV adoption because they’re losing money on resales, with Sixt SE dropping Tesla models from its fleet.

The problems are expected to intensify next year, when many of the 1.2 million EVs sold in Europe in 2021 will come off their three-year leasing contracts and enter the secondhand market. How companies tackle this problem will be key for their bottom lines, consumer confidence and ultimately decarbonization — including the European Union’s plan to phase out sales of new fuel-burning cars by 2035.

“There isn’t used-car demand for EVs,” said Matt Harrison, Toyota Motor Corp.’s chief operating officer in Europe. “That’s really hurting the cost-of-ownership story.”

“One has to slash prices significantly just to get customers to look at EVs,” said Dirk Weddigen von Knapp, who heads a group representing VW and Audi dealers.

... Continue reading >>> RELATED:

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

Google Self Driving Car Can't Drive Itself
A lot of nerdy types have been getting very excited about the self - driving cars being developed by Google. Being nerdy they are not making such a fuss about the decent looking rides being developed by the likes of Mrecedes Benz, General Motors and Toyota. No, it's the Google wankermobile that turns them on.

All The Reasons You'll Ever Need For Not Buying An Electric Car As Tesla Electric Car Turns Into Firebomb after Collision.
The electric car thing will not go away will it, ever since the science tits who work for Big Tech started proposing that electric cars are the future it has been proved many times in many ways that they are not. Cost, extremely limited range and safety are mong the reasons. And here as a Tesla goes up in smoke, is another ...

Google Car Driverless Because No Sane Person Would Be Seen Dead In One
A few years ago Google boss Eric Schmidt said the company's aim was to get as close to creepy as they could without crossing the line. Well they had crossed the line long before he said that. The latest Google wirdness is the much hyped driverless car. It looks as if it was designed by a five year old. On the other hand it might be the ideal car for paedophiles who want to go cruising for jailbait.

Electric Car Mini Adventure

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Monday, October 30, 2023

The Myth Of Unlimited Cheap Green Power Is Falling Apart

Wind is by far the cheapest form of power and will us a cheap, plentiful electricity far into the future as we can see. We know this is the unquestionable truth because the green blog, the government, mainstream media and that strange, quasi - religious cult The Science tell us so. 

But all this goes against common sense because one does not need to be an engineer or scientist to observe that wind turbines cannot generate electricity when there in no (or too little wind,) and thus the initial capital investment, plus maintenance and transportation (via cables,) costs drives up the price wind farm operators must charge in order to be profitable. 

In the words of Tom Glover, chair of energy company RWE’s UK arm, last week: "No more offshore wind farms will be built unless the Government hikes the guaranteed long-term prices offered to their operators by as much as 70 per cent." 

The energy “market” is not really much of a market at all, not when it comes to green energy. The Government underwrites wind and solar through “contracts for difference” – guaranteeing operators a minimum “strike price”, rising with inflation, for every megawatt-hour of electricity they generate over 15 years. Regulations also coerce suppliers into prioritising buying wind and solar sourced energy over gas, nuclear and coal derived sources. 

The problem now is that wind farm owners and operators will no longer accept the prices offered by government. Last time the Government held an auction for the right to build offshore wind farms, in September, not a single bid was submitted. The maximum strike price the Government offered was £44 per MWh. According to RWE it won’t receive any bids until this is raised to between £65 and £75. 

When we are told almost every day by green blob activists and disciples of The Science that the cost of wind energy is to be falling year on year surely we are entitled to ask WTF is going on. In truth costs were falling then worsening economic conditions, higher commodity prices and rising interest rates, together with reductions in government subsidies for 'green' electricity derailed the plan to lull us into a false sense of security before hitting us with the true cost of green energy and the rest of the 'net zero' lunacy when all the gas, nuclear and coal generating capacity had been decommissioned and there were no alternatives left.

  It is worth noting that with renewable energy, most of the costs come upfront – which makes it particularly reliant on cheap debt.  But this is only half the story. If we are going to have a grid based on intermittent renewables, it is no use looking just at the cost of generation. We have to add on the cost of energy storage, or some other kind of back-up – or else build so many wind and solar farms that we have just enough power at the worst of times, and a super-abundance of it at other times. All are likely to be horrendously expensive. 

Storing energy in lithium batteries, for example, can cost around six times as much as generating it in the first place. Using gas as back-up – as we do now – means we have gas power stations sitting idle for some periods, pushing up the unit cost of generation when they are needed. 'Renewables' cannot be manufactured, installed and maintained without a fully operational fossil-fuel based energy system. In effect they're just an offshoot of the Oil and Coal business, and can exist only as long as we continue to produce fossil fuels. 

Furthermore the Net Zero concept is itself a deluded concept based on faulty politicised pseudo science and is neither achievable nor desirable.The carbon trading schemes are an attempt at global control ,taxation and resdistribution by the back door and as for carbon capture - it is a loony idea that would result in a reduction in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere over time with disastrous results if we continued to use fossil fuels - which of course we are going to do. 

The question we should be asking is why have a plan for net zero at all? The climate will change and change again, it is what planet earth does. Thousands of years worth of ice core samples, millions of years worth of fossil and geological records show we have no influence on the climate no matter how arrogantly we think that we have. Keep improving our tech and efficiencies in producing energy and we shall have cleaner air to breath and cheaper power so that everyone benefits. Don’t beggar ourselves back to the stone age, only the vested interests who so cleverly set this particular hare running are reaping the rewards. 

 The seductive femme fatale of Cheap Solar and Wind energy is finally exposed for the old brass she always was. Has anyone with the last vestiges of a brain stopped to think about the most basic drawbacks of 'renewables'? 

The sun goes in at night and really only generates good power for about 60-70% of the day so we need vast , highly expensive, planet raping battery storage and solar panels put in place..

The wind only blows for about a third of the year with sufficient force to generate adequate power (as is explained in detail HERE,). Neither the cost or evironmental damaged involved in installing these huge turbines is never taken into account.

Dam fed water power is useful but rivers only really run at a decent force for about a half of the year - (water level too low.) There is some potential in run of river schemes, placing small turbines horizontally wherever there is a weir or flood control device. 

 Tidal power is also quoted , but the tide moves in and out twice a day - and only generates decent power for about 4 hours for each tide - i.e One third of the day. Tidal barrages such as have been proposed for The Severn Estuary, Cardiff Bay, Morecambe Bay and other tidal inlets could be a valuable resource but the green screamers don't sem able to understand the difference between a barrage and a dam. 

The biggest con perpetrated by our loony lefties , greens, just stop oilers etc. is that wind and solar will replace hydrocarbons as our major fuel source any time soon.

What keeps the lights on when the above " efficient , cheap " sources are not working? When the wind does not blow strongly enough (or too strongly for that matter,) when the sun does not shine (or average for 12 hours a day around the world or is at too oblique an angle to the solar panels (yes we can tilt the panels to catch a bit more sun but we can't tilt the sun to achieve the maximum output rates the green blob base their estimates on.

But what has common sense to do with these overtly favour currying political decisions

The chickens will come to roost this winter. In fact today, 30 October 2023,) at 17:00 hrs with darkness fallen and the sun contributing nothing, all those wonderful wind turbines are generating just 17% of our current electricity need. Gas as usual is doing the spadework and delivering 44% with nuclear on 12%, biomass (woodschips) 6% and good old coal providing 4%. Other sources (mostly hydro,) are chipping in 7% and if you are thinking that does not add up to 100%, the rest is being made up by importing electricity via underrsea cables fron France, Netherlands and Norway. If there is a similar scenario to December last year, when a large area of high pressure caused hard frosts and no wind for the windmills, the National Grid had to pay an extortionate emergency price to get supply to keep the lights on. Whilst demand was 37Gw or more according to the National Grid website, windmills were mostly producing less than 1Gw for days due to associated light winds. This year the back up for wind-power is reduced, and in a similar scenario blackouts are unavoidable. It is only when the lights go out, will people realise they have been conned by Boris Johnson and the Green lobby. 

 

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The True Cost Of The Green Energy Boom Is Now Being Realized
For four decades we have been fed a constant stream of propaganda assuring us that green energy was the only way forward if we wanted to secure supplies of the energy essential to a modern society while preventing the environmental catastrophes that would be the inevitable consequence of climate change caused by the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emitted by human industrial, commercial and social activity. ... Continue reading >>>

Electricity cuts and power crisis predicted for Britain’s New Year Holiday
Shapps carefully omits to mention that the government’s only contingency plan for providing the power needed to meet peaks of demand (a sudden cold snap for example) is to spark up the thousands of diesel generators the earth loving politicians have concealed in goods containers on compounds sited around the country. Yes you read that right, diesel generators ...

Now Even ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann Admits The ‘Pause’ In Global Warming Is Real
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims,” the paper in Nature Climate Change says.

German Scientist Confims Climate Change Ia A Politically Motivated Scam
Even as the inbred idiot Prince Charles was babbling to a hand picked audience about the skid marks in his underpants being caused by Climate Change, a somewhat more scientifically literate person, Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert, a retired geologist and data computation expert, has confirmed what those of us dubbed 'climate deniers' have been telling you for years ...

It Looks As If Carbon Credits Scam Has INCREASED CO2 Emissions
As the climate change scare becomes more and more exposed for the money making fraud it always was, they green weirdie beardie, rope sandal wearing tree huggers get more hysterical and stupid in their arguments that we must all return to medieval lifestyles, the billionaires like Al Gore who hope to profit from it keep flogging the dead horse and the angrier and more vicious the left wing hate mobs become in their witch hunts.

When Governments Play GOD: The TRUTH About GLOBAL GEOENGINEERING
After a personal admission that he 'went soft' on the elitist malfeasance, misinformation and power grabbing which poses a much greater threat to civilisation than any pandemic, climate event or political coup ever can, the auhor takes aim at the loonytoons plan to control climate change by blocking the sun's rays with chemical dust ... Continue reading >>>

The Truth About Coal And The Lies Of The Elite
So much for all the COP 26 banter late last year. Let me remind you. The elites all flew in on their private jets and promptly told us we’re all (royal we) getting off fossil fuels and killing coal.So how’s that turning out?
The usage of coal is now at record highs:

Electricity cuts and power crisis predicted for Britain’s New Year Holiday
Shapps carefully omits to mention that the government’s only contingency plan for providing the power needed to meet peaks of demand (a sudden cold snap for example) is to spark up the thousands of diesel generators the earth loving politicians have concealed in goods containers on compounds sited around the country. Yes you read that right, diesel generators ...

Volkswagen Emissions Scandal - Is It The Tip Of The Iceberg?
The real problem here is that, driven by the hysterical warnings of self interested pseudo-scientists, politicians have set unachievable targets for reducing emissions while demanding that national economies keep growing.

America and UK Lead the World in Climate Scepticism
Several times now it has looked as if the climate chance scare was over as the enthusiasm of climate scitentists for changing real world data to fit in with the predictions of their mathematical models has been exposed. But as the scare was never about the environment, but was a scam to redistribute wealth from rich to poor countries, the politicians are throwing their propaganda budgets behind it again.

p>Global Warming Is Not Causing Any Polar Ice Cap Meltdown Says NASA
Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

The Truth About Coal And The Lies Of The Elite
So much for all the COP 26 banter late last year. Let me remind you. The elites all flew in on their private jets and promptly told us we’re all (royal we) getting off fossil fuels and killing coal.So how’s that turning out?
The usage of coal is now at record highs:

Britain is Breaking Down; The Economy Is Struggling, Living Standards Are Falling, Institutions Are Failing
Successive governments have brought Britain to its knees.This article will focus on Britain as representative of the general malaise that is afflicting almost all the developed world. Our current crop of politicians have discarded the resources that brought the country out of the post war decline ... In spite of being rich in energy resources Britain is now in an energy crisis, our leaders have sacrificed prosperity on the altar of Net Zero, committing the nation to our reducing our 1% contribution to harmful emissions still further ...

Official Advice - Prepare For Blackouts This Winter
The UK
government is putting plans together for days of organised blackouts this winter, in what they call
a "reasonable worst-case scenario" for energy shortages, according to reports in manstream media. Naturally they are blaming this on the embargo on importing gas from Russia but in reality Britain has never imported any more than a small amout of its gas from Russia. The real reason politicians and energy company CEOs are panicking is entirely due to their obession with obtaining all our energy from intermittent sources like wind and sunshine ...

"Revolution Has Begun": 75,000 Brits Plan To Stop Paying Power Bills In Protest At Energy Rip Off
Resistance is growing to spiralling domestic energy costs in Britain as more than 75,000 irritated people in the UK have pledged not to pay their electricity bill this fall when prices jump again. 

If the government & energy companies refuse to act then
ordinary people will! Together we can enforce a fair price and affordable energy for all," tweeted "Don't Pay UK," an anonymous group spearheading the effort to have more than one million Brits boycott paying their power bill by Oct. 1.

UK Energy Crisis Deepens as prices and demand skyrocket while supplies shrink to critical levels
It is ironic that in the week world leaders and flat faced Swedeish trolls are gathering in Glasgow for an orgy of virtue signalling that will inevitably drive millions of people in the developed world into fuel poverty and result in more industrial jobs being exported from the west to the world’s major produceres of Carbon Dioxide emissions, China and India, the energy crunch that is affecting the whole of Europe is about to hit the United Kingdom extremely hard.
... Continue reading >>>

Shale Gas Salvation? Frack Off ....
A few months ago, before the June oil prices crash, the US oil industry was ebullient. "It is too late for OPEC to stop the shale revolution", industry pundits squawked, "OPEC can’t stop the shale industry" – screamed banner headlines in the usually restrained financial press. But if a week is a lon=g time in politics, three months is eternity in the oil business.

House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
Another costly new product hailed as a breakthough in technology, this time a clutching-at-straws exercise from the failing electric car company Tesla, completely fails to live up to the hype under scrutiny. Hailed as a super battery, a mjor advance in battery technology that will change the world to store power for a household, it turns out to be nothing more than a streamined car battery. It will run the average home for about 2 hours.

Researchers Discover How to Use Living Plants to Generate Electricity.
Most of the hyped green energy solutions to generate electricity from wind or sunshine are so obviously flawed the only thing that makes them economically viable is that governments offer huge subsidies to generators. This in turn makes the sustainables so expensive that consumers cannot afford the intermittent energy they produce.

Wind farms paid £43million to stand idle because on windy days they produce more power than the National Grid could handle
But you can't switch the coal, gas ans nuclear plants off becausethe wind can drop very suddenly. John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation has said too many wind farms have been built too quickly, without the infrastructure to cope with the power. Officials are also pandering to suppliers running the Government’s ‘pet technology’, he said, allowing them to charge whatever they wanted to switch off, he said.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Sales Of Electric Cars Fall As Market Forces Bite

Costs and lack of charging network deter drivers

September 20, 2023

Hyperbolic propaganda of the advantages of 'clean, green' electric cars has been punctured by figures revealing a fall of more than 11 per cent in the sale of zero-emission vehicles to private buyers.

Commenting on the figures released this week The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that motorists are being put off buying electric because of the high cost of the vehicles, (an entry level electricv family car costs as much as fossil fuel powered, executive range model from a quality brand,) uncertainty about whether a government ban on petrol and diesel cars can be enforced, the difficulty of selling EVs on the second hand market, the cutting of financial incentives, range anxiety and fears about the lack of an adequate public charging network.

Ministers and the industry have been waxing lyrical about the rise in sales of electric cars for years, claiming  rising sales has been a sign that Britain is ready to move from the “early adopter” stage of battery electric vehicle (BEV) ownership to mass market. Funny how the rise came to an abrupt end once buyer subsidies were removed, just as it had in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

However, the number of electric cars bought in the first half of 2023 was down on the comparable period of the previous year, with the huge drop in sales to private buyers accounting for most of the loss of sales. Fleet operators and contract hire companies continued to support the electrification of personal transport as their businesses still benefit from subsidies and tax breaks while incentives to private buyers have largely disappeared.

In his review of net zero policies, deatiled in a televised speech today, Rishi Sunak announced postponment of the proposed ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035.  But it is by no means certain the car industry can actually meet that target as there are already vast acreages of what was formerly agricultural land now pack with thousand of unsalable electric vehicles as the predicted public enthusiasm for flushing money down the toilet failed to materialise.

While headline sales of electric cars might seem to be healthy  the details tell a different story. Sales to corporate buyers are buoyant, encouraged by a favourable company car tax regime. But sales to private buyers are faltering. In the first half of the year, 37,000 private buyers bought an electric car, down from 41,800 a year earlier. So how can total sales have held up?

The fleet operators, large corporations and car hire companies, are given huge discounts (up to 40%) on list prices because they buy bulk. On top of this there are subsidies and tax breaks for buying electric. These corporate owners then tend to replace the vehicles they buy as an early stage in the car's life. And a lot of the electric cars bought last year are now choking up the showrooms and forecourts of second hand car dealers. The dealers are already refusing to take more pre - owned EVs, simply because they can't shift existing stock so by next year we can expect to see fleet sales dropping because the operators will not be able to offload existing stock at acceptable prices. 

So far, the private market for electric cars has been dominated by wealthy early-adopters buying them as second cars, town runabouts for shopping trips and school runs. The reasons of those buyers for choosing electric include virtue signalling, impressing the neighbours and simply ostentatious displays of wealth. Downmarket a little, pragmatism has a much greater bearing on the buyers choice

It is painfully clear that electric cars are not yet selling themselves on their merits. They have been sold with the help of of generous grants and tax breaks from government and huge amounts of free publicity from mainstream media, but now those government incentives are winding down and news media are losing interest,  buyers are looking more critically at the problems of owning an electric car: namely the higher purchase price, the short range, the length of time it takes to recharge and the paucity of the recharging network.

Maybe one day someone will launch a competitively priced electric car which can travel 500 miles between charges and takes no more than 15 minutes to recharge, at which point electric cars will become as useful as petrol ones. Toyota has claimed it will produce such a car by the end of the decade, (but don't bet your life savings on it.) In the meantime, the government is trying to force a product on motorists which they are going to be reluctant to buy.

The obvious answer would be to allow motorists to gravitate towards electric cars gradually via hybrids. The trouble is that the government has promised to outlaw new sales of these too. As a result, the industry has been disincentivised from developing the concept of a hybrid. Most of the hybrids on offer are really just token efforts – ‘mild’ hybrids designed to extend the life of existing ranges while meeting government targets, but which will spend most of their time being powered with large, gas-guzzling petrol engines.

It's all bollocks really.

RELATED:

All The Reasons You'll Ever Need For Not Buying An Electric Car As Tesla Car Turns Into Firebomb
The electric car thing will not go away will it, ever since the science tits who work for Big Tech started proposing that electric cars are the future it has been proved many times in many ways that they are not. Cost, extremely limited range and safety are mong the reasons. And here as a Tesla goes up in smoke, is another ...

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
Another costly new product hailed as a breakthough in technology, this time a clutching-at-straws exercise from the failing electric car company Tesla, completely fails to live up to the hype under scrutiny. Hailed as a super battery, a mjor advance in battery technology that will change the world to store power for a household, it turns out to be nothing more than a streamined car battery. It will run the average home for about 2 hours.

Google Self Driving Car Can't Drive Itself
A lot of nerdy types have been getting very excited about the self - driving cars being developed by Google. Being nerdy they are not making such a fuss about the decent looking rides being developed by the likes of Mrecedes Benz, General Motors and Toyota. No, it's the Google wankermobile that turns them on.

All The Reasons You'll Ever Need For Not Buying An Electric Car As Tesla Electric Car Turns Into Firebomb after Collision.
The electric car thing will not go away will it, ever since the science tits who work for Big Tech started proposing that electric cars are the future it has been proved many times in many ways that they are not. Cost, extremely limited range and safety are mong the reasons. And here as a Tesla goes up in smoke, is another ...

Google Car Driverless Because No Sane Person Would Be Seen Dead In One
A few years ago Google boss Eric Schmidt said the company's aim was to get as close to creepy as they could without crossing the line. Well they had crossed the line long before he said that. The latest Google wirdness is the much hyped driverless car. It looks as if it was designed by a five year old. On the other hand it might be the ideal car for paedophiles who want to go cruising for jailbait.

Electric Car Mini Adventure

AI experts are increasingly afraid of what they’re creating
In 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had something to say: “AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.” Pichai’s comment was met with a healthy dose of skepticism. But nearly five years later, it’s looking more and more prescient. College professors are tearing their hair out because AI text generators can now write essays as well as your typical undergraduate ...

Will The Online Safety Bill Protect Free Speech Or Assist Censorship?
The UK Online Safety Bill is presented to parliament for its final reading next week. Secretary of State for Digital Culture Michelle Donelan announced this morning that the controversial “legal but harmful” clause has been removed and thus free speech has been protected. Anti self-harm activists and groups opposinthe Gay BLTQ movement's push for paedophile equal rights and the sexualisation of children don’t like it one little bit, though free-speech enthusiasts should take no comfort from that. The Bill puts into legal jeopardy anything that creates “a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of adults in the United Kingdom”.

Green dreams of Heat Pumps
When Boris Johnson revealed the UK Government plans for achieving 'net zero' carbon emissions by 2050 it emerged the much teased clean, green replacement for gas boilers as our main source of domestic heating is to be heat pumps. The Daily Stirrer counters the pseudo-scientific bollocks and reveals this 'new technology has been around for a hundred years.

from Great Game India Bill Gates has proposed and funded a geoengineering experiment to determine whether blotting out the Sun with aerosols could reverse global warming. This experiment was undertaken by Sweden’s space agency. But now they have called off this project as they are facing a great opposition from the environmental activists. The experiment … Continue reading

Bill Gates Flounders When Asked Direct Questions About His Vaccine Agenda

Bill Gates, the world’s greatest vaccine fan and long term purveyor of software that is not fit for purpose, has been one of the main drivers of the wholly manufactured COVID – 19 global crisis that has seen our political leaders unquestioningly follow the instructions of corporate lobbyists and representatives of the Big Pharma cartel, … Continue reading>>>

Bill Gates running deadly global “vaccine empire” that can only exist through extreme censorship Bill Gates – wannabe Dr. Death? (picture: NewsTarget.com) The reason why Microsoft co-founder and billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates is being given so much airtime amid the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis is because Gates is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, as well as the money … Continue reading
Continue reading

Italian Politician Demands Bill Gates Arrest For Crimes Against Humanity
As the FDA shuts down a Bill Gates-funded COVID-testing program, an Italian politician has demanded the arrest of Bill Gates in the Italian parliament. Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome denounced Bill Gates as a “vaccine criminal” and urged the Italian President to hand him over to the International Criminal Court for crimes …Continue reading

‘Bill Gates seeks to microchip humanity!’ Russian Oscar-winning director pushes vaccine conspiracy…Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov claims billionaire Bill Gates might be seeking to implant humanity with microchips under the guise of vaccination, seeking to control people and ultimately “solve” overpopulation. The ongoing coronavirus crisis has produced a number of wild conspiracy theories, as some are …
Continue reading

World Domination Freak Bill Gates Appeals For World Government
In a recent interview with the German magazine ?Süddeutsche Zeitung?, Bill Gates, son of a CIA director and the New World Order’s ‘made man’ uttered some highly sinister comments in support of abolishing democracy and nationhood in favour of world government. Now those of us in the know have never been puzzled about … Continue reading

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Friday, March 24, 2023

Top News Stories From Around The Web - 24 March 2023

 

France Burns As Million Protesters Rage Against Pension Reforms

France is engulfed in turmoil following President Emmanuel Macron's controversial decision to raise the retirement age. Over a million people participated in nationwide protests on Thursday, transforming urban areas into scenes of chaos. These demonstrations, the largest in years, have triggered fuel shortages, hundreds of arrests, and even claims of "civil war." 


 Picture: CBC Canada

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told French media outlet CNews on Friday morning that more than 900 fires were reported in the streets of Paris on Thursday night -- in one of the most violent days of protests in a while. 

"There were a lot of demonstrations and some of them turned violent, notably in Paris," Darmanin said. He said more than a million people marched yesterday. 

Police warned anarchist groups were infiltrating marches across Paris and other demonstrations. Men wearing hoods and facemasks were seen smashing windows and setting fire to trash piles and, in some cases, burning buildings. In the southern city of Bodeaux the town hall was set on fire by protestors. ... Continue reading >>>

MORE posts on France and itys social meltdown
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Germany's Chancellor Scholz says 'No Reason To Worry' As Deutsche Bank Bloodbath Reignites Global Bank Crisis Fears

Last night, amid assurances from the US Federal Reserve that a global banking crisis had been averted, market watchers noticed an unprecedented ($60 billion) surge in foreign official Repo (repurchase agreemen: a financial instrument for short term borrowing,) under the Fed's new FIMA repo facility, which means that the foreign banks or institutions desperately needed access to USD. 

The assumption was that it was Credit Suisse (or their new owner UBS) shoring up some shortfalls, but with the action of the last couple of days, others are worrying that there is more trouble brewing in the EU banking sector. 

After brief respite earlier in the week, European bank stocks are cratering once again, now at 3-month lows (catching down to Senior Financial CDS)... Deutsche Bank stock has crashed to 5-month lows... Deutsche Bank CDS, (Credit Default Swaps, a method of insuring lenders agaist borrowers defaulting on interest payments,) is soaring Commerzbank is also rising rapidly both are now higher than at peak of the COVID lockdowns... 

Notably, Deutsche Bank unexpectedly announced its decision to redeem a tier 2 bonds on Friday in a reassuring effort. “Deutsche’s decision to redeem (having received all required regulatory approvals) should be a reassuring signal to credit investors,” Autonomous analyst Stuart Graham wrote in a note on Friday. But instead, other Deutsche Bank AT1 bonds have plunged in price (with yields soaring above 16%). With the Credit Suisse meltdown only a week old, it looks like deja vu all over again. MORE posts on Banking and Finance


EV battery scratched in accident? Your insurer might have to write off the whole car.

(Source: Reuters) On top of all the other draw.backs of owning an electric vehicle, unhappy owners are now finding their cars are being wriiten off and scrapped when they make an insurance claim following even a minor accident. Even seemingly trivial damage to the battery pack can have catastrophic results and there is no way to repair or even properly assess damaged battery packs after accidents. Lithium, the main component of EV batteries is a highly volatile material and a damaged battery can pose an unacceptable risk of spontaneous combustion, resulting in a fire that cannot be put out by conventional means (i.e. water, CO2,) forcing insurance companies to write off cars with only a few miles on the clock. Inevitably this is leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.

Additionally, and in spite of ecoloons claims to the contrary, there is as yet no way of recycling battery packs and not imminent advances are likely to change that so clapped out and damaged EV battery packs are piling up in scrapyards in some countries, a previously unreported and insurmountable obstacle in what was supposed to be a "circular economy."


 

"We're buying electric cars for sustainability reasons," said Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research. "But an EV isn't very sustainable if you've got to throw the battery away after a minor collision."

Battery packs can cost tens of thousands of pounds, dollars or euros to replace and represent up to 50% of an EV's price tag. The cost of installing a replacement battery pack can often exceed the second hand value of the car they have been installed in, making it economically unjustifable to replace them.

While some EV makers like Ford Motor Co (F.N) and General Motors Co (GM.N) say they have made battery packs more easily repairable, Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has taken the opposite direction with its latest Model Y, the new structural battery pack of which has been described by experts as having "zero repairability."

Tesla have not responded to requests for comment.

A Reuters search of EV salvage sales in the U.S. and Europe shows a large portion of low-mileage Teslas, but also models from Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS), Stellantis (STLAM.MI), BMW (BMWG.DE), Renault (RENA.PA) and others have been scapped after minor accidents.

"The number of write offs is going to increase as EV sales increase, so the handling of batteries is a crucial point," said Christoph Lauterwasser, managing director of the Allianz Center for Technology, a research institute owned by Allianz (ALVG.DE).

Unless Tesla and other EV manufacturers can produce repairable battery packs and provide third-party access to battery cell data so that independent mechanics and electricians can work on them, already-high insurance premiums will keep rising and more low-mileage cars get scrapped after collisions, insurers and industry experts said as reports were circulating that second hand EVs are practically unsaleable and everyday drivers are coming to realise that while EVs are fine as taxis or delivery vehicles, for the private motorist they are expensive city runabout or rich boys' toys.

Electric Car Fireworks

Saturday, March 18, 2023

Net Zero Policy Could Cost American Taxpayers More Than $50 Trillion, Engineering Professor Warns

 

An experienced and respected Engineering Professor at Cambridge University, UK, has warned that the Biden administration's commitment to to decarbonising the US economy by 2050 is doomed to failure. Professor Michael Kelly, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, has previously studied the impact of Net Zero projects in the UK and his native New Zealand and has published articles and research papers arguing that the existential threat to humanity posed by climate change narrative has been vastly exaggerated to produce a climate of fear in order to coerce the public into compliance with policies that benefit the political, corporate and financial elites.  Prof Kelly has now turned his attention to the United States, where puppet president, Joe 'Dementia Man' Biden fronts an administration of far left extremists whose avowed aim is to turn Americal into a communist, one - party state..

Kelly's headline findings in his first report on the Biden administrations efforts abandon oil, gas and coal as energy sources is a stark warning for politicians around the world.

“The cost to 2050 will comfortably exceed $12 trillion for electrification projects, and $35 trillion for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. A work-force comparable in size to the health sector will be required for 30 years, including a doubling of the present number of electrical engineers. The bill of specialist materials is of a size that, for the USA alone, is several times the global annual production.”

Professor Kelly warns that politicians are not thinking through the scale of the project they are pursuing.

“It’s clear that no country has the manpower, the materials, or the money to deliver Net Zero. It cannot be attempted without establishing a command economy, and even then it would fail. This is a fool’s errand.”

Michael Kelly: The Feasibility of a Net Zero Economy for the USA by 2050 (pdf)

 

RELATED:

Just When We Need It Most, Renewable Energy Disappears
In an encouraging sign of a great awakening, million of people in the UK are now, after a week of brutally cold, absolutely windless weather asking "Why have we wasted so much money on wind turbines and harvesting solar energy."
  Yet when politicians are asked directly: "How do we keep the lights on and our homes warm when the wind does not blow and the sun is too low in the sky to make much impression on photovoltaic cells that do the business in solar panels?

Europe's Cold Spell Exposes Green Energy Policy Failure
So far the autumn of 2022 has been unusually mild which has had eco-warriors getting worked up and gluing their arses to motorways and airport runways to demand that we stop using oil. However winter temperatures across Europe predictably dropped sharply in late November and through most of December to date have been positively arctic. Scientists have offered the opinion that the cold weather spell the ongoing European gas crisis is now “likely” to worsen significantly as usual seasonal weather spreads across the northern half of the continent, bringing with it an increased need for domestic heating.

Minister's Claim That 40% UK Energy Comes From Renewables Is Technically Illiterate
Britain's newly installed Secretary of State for Energy, Grant Shapps, is still learning the job so perhaps we should cut him some slack, but even so a statement he made on our energy supply today shows astounding ignorance of technical details relating to his portfolio.
Answering a question in Parliament this morning about Britain's ability to reach its target of getting 40% of our energy needs from sustainable sources, Shapps sneered that it was not possible for us to reach 40% now as we already get 43% from wind. Unfortunately the sneering sarcasm was misplaced but served to reveal the man in charge of energy policy does not know the difference between energy and electricity.

Amazing Increase in Global Sea Ice Confounds the Net Zero Warmageddonists
According to a new study based on satellite data, in 2022 there is more Artic sea ice that at any time in the past 30 years. So why after all those dire predictions of doom and devastation has Arctic sea ice cover come roaring back so quickly over the last few years? Nobody knows – apparently not one scientist on the planet can tell you, writes Willis Eschenbach in a short essay for the climate alarmism watchdog site Watts Up With That?

Common Sense Prevails: Germany Is Dismantling Wind Turbines To Make Room For Coal Mining
We have learned vial a piece in OilPrice.com that turbines at a wind farm in western Germany are being dismantled to allow for the expansion of open cast coal mining operations at an adjacent site. The propsal to increase output at the Garzweiler open-pit lignite coal mine has been described as a “paradoxical” situation given that in recent years the German government has been pushing ahead with the closure of coal and nuclear generating plant to appease its nutty but powerful Green party ... Continue reading >>>

German NatGas Consumption Too High To Avoid Energy "Emergency", Regulator Warns As Norway Increases Gas Production
Germany tok great pride in leading the race among developed nations to achieve a net xero economy but now the folly of that policy is being exposed as gas supplies from Russia dry up and the inadequacies of wind and solar are exposed

UK Government Belatedly Discovers The Uselessness Of Sustainables In Relation To Energy Security
The policy that Boris Johnson's Premiership will be remembered for is nor 'getting Brexit done,' but the government's disastrous pledge to make Great Britain the first developed nation to achieve a 'net zero' national energy system. The neglect and running down of traditional energy systems (coal, gas, nuclear,) along with flushing money down the toilet by investing in intermitternt power sources (wind, solar,) rather than Putin's war in Ukraine is responsible for the current crisis.

An Energy Crisis In Tandem With A Food Crisis On Top Of An Economic Crisis And A War. This Cannot End Well
As politicians in North America and Europe try to deflect from their own failure that have contributed to the current plethora of crises by blaming Russia and Vladmir Putin for all the current problems, while the war in Ukraine is a contributory factor in each, the real blame lies closer to home.

Green Energy & Net Zero: A Herd Of Elephants In The Room

The Cuadrilla Lancashire gas exploration wells yielded very high-quality natural gas from just a few fractures [ ... ]Claims that less than 1\100th of the gas resource of 37.6 trillion m3 could be extracted has been shown to be false, no actual UK data on gas recovery is available the claim was based on pre-2010 US data. Just 10% gas recovery from Bowland shale could supply 50 years’ worth of current UK gas demand.

Net Zero Will Lead To The End Of Modern Civilisation, Says Top Scientist
In a recently published science paper, Dr. Wallace Manheimer said Net Zero would be the end of modern civilisation. Writing about wind and solar power he argued it would be especially tragic “when not only will this new infrastructure fail, but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment, and be entirely unnecessary”.

Germany Forcing Farmers To Use LESS Fertilizer To Satisfy EU’s Green Agenda
The German government, already reeling from the public backlash against rising fuel prices, the shortage of gas since supplies from Russia were cut off, and the biggest economic crisis in the EU, has now jumped on another 'woke' bandwagon. The socialist led ruling coalition has banned farmers in one of its federal states from properly fertilizing land in compliance with the latest lunacy of the EU's green agenda ...

Germany haemorrhaging cash to keep country running on as ‘net zero’ becomes zeroeconomic activity
Germany was so desperate to achieve 'net zero' CO2 emissions that for years the country's government closed its fossil fuel-fired and nuclear power plants,replacing those plants with wind and solar power — as well as impoorting huge volumes of natural gas and oil from Russia. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when NATO (aka the U.S.A.) mandated that the West impose retaliatory sanctions on Russia, including a ban on importation of Russian gas and oil, Germany found itself in a hole:

Thousands of Dutch farms will be forced out of business to meet new EU 'Nitrogen pollution targets
he globalist technocrats who control The European Union (EU) have enacted new environmental protection laws which will force member states, including The Netherlands, to meet the new targets for reducing emissions, which address nitrogen emissions from human activity rather than Carbon Dioxide, the Netherlands government proposes to shut down a large portion of its farming industry in order to comply with emissions targets ...

Thousands of Dutch farms will be forced out of business to meet new EU 'Nitrogen pollution targets
he globalist technocrats who control The European Union (EU) have enacted new environmental protection laws which will force member states, including The Netherlands, to meet the new targets for reducing emissions, which address nitrogen emissions from human activity rather than Carbon Dioxide, the Netherlands government proposes to shut down a large portion of its farming industry in order to comply with emissions targets ...

[ Net Zero reality ] ... [ Extinction Rebellion ] ... [ Green Dreams ] ... [ Climate Change ] ... [ Woke ]

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Main News Stories - 14 February 2023

 

French Historian Says World War III Has Already Begun

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson, Summit News.,

A French historian who accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union over a decade in advance says that World War III has already begun as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

The comments were made by Emmanuel Todd, one of France’s leading intellectuals, during an interview with the Le Figaro newspaper.

“It is evident that the conflict, initially a limited territorial war, has evolved into a global economic confrontation between the whole West on one side, and Russia, backed by China, on the other. It has become a world war,” Todd said.

Todd added that “the resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the U.S. imperial system toward the abyss” and that Biden must “hurry” to rescue a “fragile” America.

According to the historian, U.S. control of the world financial system is at risk because the Russian economy’s resistance to sanctions is pushing “the American imperial system” toward the precipice,” with Russia still able to rely on China for monetary backing.

Todd says America “cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go,” because it has no exit strategy and the stakes are too high. ... Continue reading >>>

 



5G Has Its Day in Court

by Gillian Jamieson
Daily Sceptic 14 February 2023 9:00 AM

A few days ago, I spent a day and a half in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice, listening to a Judicial Review in which Michael Mansfield KC challenged the Government for its “failure to give adequate information to the public about the risks of 5G and to explain the absence of a process for investigation of any adverse health effects”. These  failures are deemed to be in breach of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 due to positive obligations to protect human life, health and dignity as stated in Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I was fascinated by Mr. Mansfield’s take on these issues. Those of us who have concerns about the adverse health effects of radio-frequency radiation (RFR) such as 5G usually argue that the ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection) safety exposure guidelines relied upon by Government to protect our health are woefully inadequate because they only recognise the heating of tissue as potentially harmful and because many thousands of well-conducted studies have shown harm below the heating threshold. ... Continue reading >>>

 


Norwegian Shipping Company bans electric vehicles on its vessels

Norwegian ferry company Havila Krystruten is a coastal line that offers regular services between the coastal cities of Bergen and Kierkenes, docking at many small ports on the way for loading and unloading passengers and gods. It is a similar operation to Scotland's Calodonian McBraine line which serves small communities that are difficult to access by road on the Scottish west coast and western isles. 

In January Havila Krystruten dropped a bombshell in a country that has the highest proportion of electric cars on its roads of anywhere in the world, when the company announced that it will no longer carry electric or electrified vehicles on its ships. This will be mightily off - pissing for many drivers who want to take their cars from one end of Norway's long Atlantic coast to the other avoiding an onerous road trip.

Havila Kystruten vessels have plied the Norwegian coastal route since 2021. Picture: Havila Krysruten

Havila Krystruten cited fire safety as the main reason for its decision. The company says that its ships are not equipped to fight  lithium-ion battery fires at sea. While governments and scientists have been telling us electric cars are the future, they have omitted to mention that lithium is a highly unstable element and trivial damage to batteries can cause them to spontaneously combust. But a lithium fire is no ordinary fire, it is a nuclear reaction  which can burn without oxygen and cannot be put out by conventional methods

“This is a pure safety assessment, and the conclusion of the risk analysis shows that a possible fire in fossil vehicles will be able to be handled by the systems and the crew we have on board,” said Bengt Martini, the company’s managing director, as translated by Google. “A possible fire in electric, hybrid or hydrogen cars will require external rescue efforts and could put people on board and the ships at risk.”

“We will never compromise the safety of passengers and crew. When we get such a clear conclusion on the risk assessment, the decision is very simple,” CEO Arild Myrvoll said.

The problem is particularly noteworthy in Norway, where more than 80 per cent of all vehicles sold in the country in 2022 were fully electric, making this decision a likely nuisance for passengers. However it is likely to become less of a problem when the Norwegian governments withdraws its huge subsidies on electric vehicles and consumers have to pay yhe full cost themselves

Read more: Norwegian Shipping Company Bans Electrified Vehicles Over Fire Fears, Carscoops, 19 January 2023 or the original story in Norwegian HERE.




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Thursday, September 22, 2022

News Summary - 22 September 2022

 

At the precipice of World War

Clash of the two systems of governance, as George Soros formulated it in his remarks to the World Economic Forum conference in May, seems to have reached a phase transition. Russian President Vladimir Putin has returned from last week’s summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference in Samarkand with a palpable sense of confidence and determination, and it does appear that he has obtained reassurances of support from all the key leaders during the event, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi, and even the new PM of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif.

Now, the leadership of Russia is prepared to shift gears in Ukraine. While annexation of the Donbas region wasn’t part of the objectives set out at the outset of the “Special Military Operation” in February, this could be about to change. 

****

Russia will mobilize about 1.2% of her mobilizational potential

by Vinyard of The Saker, 

So, after lots of speculation, we now know that the Kremlin has decided to mobilize about 300’000 soldiers from a total mobilizational potential of 25’000’000 soldiers.  That’s just a little over 1% of Russia’s mobilizational potential.  We are talking only about those soldiers who have an official status of “reserves” and all of them will have to undergo a special training before being sent to the Ukraine.

A few comments about this decision:

  • It will take Russia a few months to gather and retrain (refresher courses) these forces and they will not be immediately available to protect the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson regions during the upcoming referendum on to whether to join Russia or not.  The 3rd volunteer army corps is already deployed in the south and could greatly assist in this.
  • Putin and Shoigu gave several reasons for this decision, including the very long line of contact, the direct involvement of NATO personnel who are now running the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and the threats by the West to dismantle Russia.
  • Shoigu indicated that the UAF lost about 50% of its personnel (over 100’000 soldiers out of a total potential of about 200’000).  He also added that most of the Ukrainian weapons systems, which were of Soviet origin, was mostly destroyed.  Russian KIAs are just under 6000 soldiers.
  • Shoigu also clearly spelled out that “we are not so much fighting against the Ukraine but against NATO plus the united (collective) West“.
  • Shoigu also mentioned that all of the NATO satellite capabilities (70 military and 200+ civilian satellites) are used against Russia right now.
  • Finally, Shoigu added that NATO high precision weapons are deliberately used by NATO commanders to terrorize civilians.

In other words, Russia is preparing for an escalation of this war in the coming months.  She is basically augmenting her forces to a level which could deal with a major NATO escalation in the Ukraine (and elsewhere as not all mobilized forces would have to be combat units; deploying more C4ISR capabilities, logistics/supply forces or civil affairs and counter-terrorism units would also make sense).

**** 

UK Government Lifts the Fracking Ban

has more.
The Business Secretary said “much has changed” since the Conservatives introduced the moratorium on fracking in 2019, including the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

He said the country needed to “explore all avenues available to us” as he also confirmed plans to issue a wave of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

Mr. Rees-Mogg said: “While the Government will always try to limit disturbance to those living and working near to sites, tolerating a higher degree of risk and disturbance appears to us to be in the national interest given the circumstances described.

“With this in mind, it is important that the policy relating to shale gas extraction reflects this.”

The fracking ban was prompted in part by a 2.9 magnitude tremor at a site in Lancashire, and a subsequent investigation that found it was not possible to accurately predict the probability or magnitude of earthquakes.

But Mr. Rees-Mogg said more data could be collected by allowing shale gas drilling and using the wells to better understand the risk of earthquakes.

The decision to allow fracking is likely to be unpopular with many Tory MPs, including those representing constituencies where it took place prior to 2019.

****

 

LITHIUM mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment and about as far from “green” as you can imagine

 by Lance D Johnson, Natural News

Image: LITHIUM mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment and about as far from “green” as you can imagine

(Natural News) Electric vehicles are promoted as the solution for combating “climate change.” Governments are currently incentivizing the production of electric vehicles, while punishing the fossil fuel industry. However, lithium mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment, and is about as far from “green” as one could imagine. Not to mention, most of the lithium-ion batteries produced today come from China and require water-intensive mining operations that ravage natural environments throughout Australia, Argentina and Chile. The process depletes ground water, and leaves behind toxic wastewater that contaminates fields and harms wildlife. The mining process is not carbon dioxide free, either. The mining process releases 15,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of lithium that is extracted.

When lithium is extracted from salt mines, the miners must drill into the salt flats and pump out a salty, mineral-rich brine. The brine is placed in large pools, so the water can evaporate out. When the brine evaporates, it leaves behind a sludge of potassium, manganese, borax and lithium salts that must be filtered out further. The process pollutes nearby aquifers and lowers the water table, interfering with water sources in the local environment.

The lithium extraction process takes several months, displaces valuable water resources, and leaves behind a toxic trail of wastewater in the local environment. It takes approximately 500,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of lithium. When mining companies head into countries like Chile, they use up a majority of the region’s water, unjustly affecting small communities.

****

At UN, Biden Has The Audacity To Say Russia Can't Take A Country's Territory By Force

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

At the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, President Biden focused most of his speech on Ukraine and accused Russia of violating the UN Charter by launching the war.

"Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force," he said.

US Bradley Fighting Vehicle patrols near oil production facilities in Syria's northeastern Hasakah province, file image.

Biden’s comments highlight US hypocrisy on the issue as Washington currently occupies a major portion of eastern Syria despite the Syrian government’s opposition. The US also supports Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza, and Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade on its neighbor Yemen.

Biden said that the US will continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia based on the principle that "you cannot seize a nation’s territory by force."

 ****