Tesla Bumper Sticker I saw today

[NNadir]

9. I would never buy an electric car, particularly because I understand the PJM grid on which I live. They're dirty.

I discussed it here, with respect to a scientific paper demonstrating that an electric car on my grid has a worse climate profile than a gasoline car: A paper addressing the idea that electric cars are "green."

A graphic from that post with the caption in the original paper:

Figure 6. Consequential life cycle air emission externalities per vehicle in 2019, assuming 10% of the light-duty passenger car fleet in PJM’s service area is replaced with PEVs. “ICEV” denotes a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle, “HEV” denotes a standard gasoline hybrid electric vehicle (NiMH battery), “PHEV20” denotes a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle with a battery range of 20 miles (Li-ion battery with NMC111 cathode chemistry), and “BEV300” denotes a battery electric with a battery range of 300 miles (Li-ion battery with NMC622 cathode chemistry). “CC” indicates that battery charge schedules are optimally controlled by PJM to minimize system operation costs, and “UC” indicates that battery charging is uncontrolled (i.e., initiated by the vehicle owner as soon as they complete their daily driving and arrive home. “Production” includes disposal and recycling; “Vehicle Use” includes tailpipe emissions and tire and brake wear).

All of this crap is based on the lie people like to tell themselves that electricity is "green." It isn't. It's overwhelmingly produced by the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels with a huge thermodynamic penalty. All the stupid photographs of wilderness industrialized to make inefficient solar and wind power plants, lipstick on the fossil fuel pig, will not make electricity "green." They will only make things worse faster, which they are effectively doing.

The Disastrous 2024 CO2 Data Recorded at Mauna Loa: Yet Another Update 12/08/2024

Despite understanding the enormous ethical consequences of lithium batteries as expressed in cobalt slavery I drive a hybrid car, at best a moral compromise of a type. From a thermodynamic sense, they involve exergy recovery from the fossil fuel energy, chiefly braking and idling that would be rejected to the environment in an ordinary ICE powered car. The 2024 Toyota Camry hybrid I drive can achieve, with judicious use of cruise control and doing the speed limit as often as possible, greater than the rated 51 mpg, more typically 55+ mpg. That doesn't make me or my car "green." It just makes us less filthy, again, a moral compromise I lack the courage to suspend.

It is unsurprising to me that Elon Musk, graduate of Apartheid, has managed to exploit ignorance and wishful thinking to engineer the downfall of the United States. It is a demonstration of how advertising and credulity can lead to disaster, in this case, to repeat, the probable fall of the United States.