Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Running Out of Gas

As for the Green New Deal you are going to obey its dictates, whether you like it or not. You do not get a choice. You do not get an informed choice. You will do what you are told, because the government will not allow you the option-- to burn fossil fuel.

In California you will drive an electric car, even if the state lacks a sufficient number of charging stations. And you will do so even if, when the temperature gets cold, the cars do not function.


So, the goal is to ban gasoline, the kind that runs the transportation system. As for the production of electricity, for the cars, among other things, no one cares to mention that it is mostly produced by burning coal. And no one quite understands why our international competitors, as in, China, continue to build coal burning power plants. Apparently, they think that burning coal is better than blackouts or shuttered factories.


You might think that cooking with gas is largely harmless. Or better, that it is clearly a good thing. Ask anyone who cooks, whether for a family or for a living, and he will tell you that cooking with gas is superior to cooking with electricity.


Real cooks are positively horrified at the prospect of losing out in the use of gas. A ban on gas cooking will do serious damage to the restaurant business.


And yet, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been hinting that it is getting ready to ban gas for cooking. The Wall Street Journal editorializes this morning:


CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. teased in an interview with Bloomberg News this week that the agency plans to propose new regulations for gas stoves, which could include a ban. “This is a hidden hazard,” Mr. Trumka said. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”


Mr. Trumka isn’t worried that gas stoves might cause accidental burns—a hidden hazard for electric range-tops that stay hot long after they’re turned off. Instead, the agency’s purported concern is that gas stoves cause indoor air pollution and asthma, though there’s scant evidence to support such claims.


Unless you cook in a space that is completely unventilated, cooking gas is among the cleanest burning fuels. One cannot say the same for coal or for petroleum products.


And yet, gas seems to count as a fossil fuel to the environmentalist left, so, it is necessarily bad. And it must be bad. And you must stop using it, because you must be virtuous. Whether you like it or not. Back in the day, when religion determined moral right and wrong, you were allowed free will. 


No more. You will be environmentally virtuous whether you like it or not. And regardless of how much coal gets burned to support the new electric stoves.

6 comments:

IamDevo said...

Add this to the ever expanding examples of magical thinking that predominates in the minds of climate worshipers who think that by the expedience of passing a law or enacting some regulation any problem can be and is magically solved. No need to look into the real world impact of such legislative or administrative ukazes; everything will fall into place automatically, just like it does in The Marvel Universe or the games they play on their phones. The universe where you get unlimited do-overs and additional "lives" after you are killed. Or where you can create an entire "person," or culture or civilization (Wakanda, anyone?) by the simple expedient of a few taps on your keyboard or clicks on your mouse. This is the result of a generational brainwashing that has been allowed to take place by those who should know better.

David Foster said...

A coal plant is around 35% efficient at converting fuel to electricity; the rest of the energy is lost as heat. A modern combined-cycle gas plant can reach an efficiency of up to 60%. There are additional losses in electrical transmission and distribution. Overall, if your electricity comes from fossil fuels, you are going to use more energy with an electric stove than with a gas stove.

That's with a normal electric stove. Induction cooktops are more efficient, but I don't think the gain is enough to compensate for the other losses in the fuel>>electricity>>heat chain.

370H55V I/me/mine said...

The people promoting all of this know damn well that there's no way an advanced industrial economy can produce sufficient prosperity for the world's population from renewable energy alone. An economy limited by renewables is one in which many on the margins will simply die, but that too is part of the plan. They have openly stated that the goal is to reduced the world's population to no more than 500 million, by any means necessary: starvation, abortion, war, disease, feminism, LGBTQs--you name it.

And the people (at least western women) are totally on board for it.

Anonymous said...

I believe that the intent is to make us all dependent on the single energy source most susceptible to sabotage, control or natural disaster so that they can shut it down at will. Why? you ask. Because the test shutdowns and mandates of the covid worked far better than they had hoped for and they lust for that power again.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

The Left wants to rule, not govern. After all, they are Better People than we are.

Anonymous said...

The question is why millions of intelligent people accept to submit to such stupid ideas supported by just a few.