By ALEX GIMARC
I was the unfortunate recipient of a copy of comments sent by Sen. Loki Tobin to Curtis Thayer of the Alaska Energy Authority on July 17. It was a very happy letter, gushing over electric vehicles, decarbonization, and calling for AEA to do everything humanly possible to deploy sufficient charging stations for EVs using free federal energy money.
There is so much wrong with this letter that it makes my teeth hurt, not unlike eating hard sugar candy as a kid.
Let’s take a look at what Tobin says and see how magical it is.
Right off the bat, she claims to “… support the choice that millions of people across the world have made to drive electric vehicles (EVs).”
Unfortunately, here in the US, under the Biden regime, it is no longer a choice. Rather it is a top-down directed lifestyle change, with 50% of all new vehicle sales to be EVs by 2030, a mere seven years from today. Anyone else remember when democrats were all about choice, especially women’s choice?
This brilliant woman then gets down to identifying the problem of insufficient EV sales by noting there are not enough charging stations for them in Alaska. She suggests using federal money (printed or extorted from taxpayers) to deploy a network of them here in Alaska.
Magical thinking indeed.
What makes it magic? First, there isn’t enough electrical generation in the Railbelt to support switching over to EVs. Second, EV technology isn’t all that compatible with the cold country. Finally, the entire affair is under the umbrella of decarbonization, or its evil twin, Net Zero.
Let’s back up a bit and consider energy use in the Railbelt. Today, about a third of our energy use is electric, a third vehicular fuels, and a third heating.
This combination provides a rather decent safety margin, for if one of those legs has a problem delivering what it needs to deliver, we do not have to choose how quickly to freeze in the dark.
Tobin and her decarbonization magical thinkers, would propose putting all our eggs in the same electrical basket. Widespread adoption of EVs in the Railbelt would require doubling electrical generation in the Railbelt.
At least she managed to remember that EV batteries lose up to 50% of their charge when it’s cold. She forgot that they suffer similar performance losses when towing something. So much for boat and ATV owners in her Brave New World.
There are a few other problems with current EVs. For instance, they are about 1,500 pounds heavier than a similar internal combustion vehicle. Think of the sort of increase in road damage and ruts we will get with EVs. EVs also consume about six times the mineral resources than an equivalent ICE vehicle. Finally, current batteries are not repairable, or for the most part able to be replaced. Damage the battery in a collision, and you total the vehicle.
EVs aren’t the only problematic thing in a decarbonized world. Wind turbines, for instance require about nine times the mineral resources than an equivalent natural gas powered turbine.
The obvious question is where do the greens and True Believers like Tobin plan to get the additional rare earth metals for their new toys? I’ll note for the record that nobody but nobody on the democrat or green side of the argument want to mine that stuff here in the US or even Alaska (Pebble, anyone?). They are comfortable shoving that production into the Third World, the developing world, where it can be controlled by China. Happily, that little problem is out of sight and out of mind for them.
Finally, to decarbonize the railbelt even on the electric generation side, we need to replace around 90% of generation (natural gas) with something else. As no Democrat or green are discussing or even considering big hydro (Watana), GenIV nuclear (newly elected Chugach Board member Jim Nordlund ran a successful anti-nuke ad campaign against me in 2010), or Fischer – Tropsch at Tyonek (synthetic diesel, carbon capture, with electric generation), I must conclude they are virtue signaling.
To review Tobin’s magical thinking, we have a call for EVs in the cold country when the technology is not yet ready. We have a call to decarbonize without a hint why decarbonization is desirable or what positive impact on our lives such a shift will do or cost. We have a call to replace what is currently in operation for transportation and electric generation with things that take 6 to 9 times more minerals to produce, all while shutting down mining here in Alaska and the rest of the US.
Magical thinking, indeed. It must be nice to live in a fantasy world. Sadly, living there is a poor lifestyle choice for politicians who would use their comfortable happy fantasy world as the basis of governance.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
