On the Demonization of Diesel
Two pieces from other authors on the Green Electrical Utopians and their campaign against one of man's greatest inventions.
Greetings, readers of Autonomous Truck(er)s.
It’s been a little while since I’ve produced much in the way of written content - the Time Bandits are always hot on my heels; between work, my kids, and the homestead, the past couple of months have been extremely busy. Thankfully I have still managed to put out my Voice Of GO(r)D podcast, and I hope you have been enjoying that, and sharing it with others who might find it of interest.
Yesterday two very good pieces of writing were sent to me, both of them within the field of interest of this Substack and its readers.
From my man Mark Granza over at IM_1776 comes this fantastic piece on the demonization of trucks by the Electrification Fetishists, which connects this peculiar movement with many of the woes facing America at the moment.
It’s titled 'Highway to Hell', and that’s an apt enough description of our destination when the utopians want to get from A to Z without any development of the other 24 letters of the alphabet first.
Some quotes -
California, as usual, is leading the “Green” charge. This month, the California Air Resources Board voted 14-0 to pass a law that will ban the sale of diesel trucks in California by 2036. The board warned citizens that “the time for putting public health second to the economy is over.” The new law also stipulates that all trucks operating in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (home of 50% of US foreign trade) must be zero emission by 2030.
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Solutions exist that could avert catastrophe and still allow progressives to achieve their “green” goals. Setting aside the dubious improvement to the environment from the production of Lithium Ion batteries, and the power generation required to charge them, trucks are no longer the giant-nosed, black smoke-belching monsters from the ’70s. Modern engines are cleaner and more fuel-efficient. Incorporation of features like engine idle shutdowns, where the engine automatically switches to battery power at idle, carbon scrubbers, the introduction of lower sulfur diesel fuel, and a myriad of other technological advancements have made modern diesel trucks orders of magnitude cleaner than previous versions even from the 2010s.
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Progressives don’t want solutions that avoid a collapse. The ongoing logistical nightmares caused by the government’s response to COVID-19 is just a prelude to the horrors of this potential future. Factories that can’t get enough components, hospitals that can’t get repair parts on time for life-saving equipment, crops dying in the field while the people starve… That’s where we’re heading.
The whole thing is great, and worth your time to read.
Thanks to Mark Granza for publishing it, and the author, “Engelbert Racine”, who was previously not known to me.
Another great author is the Fossil Fuel advocate and green tech skeptic Alex Epstein.
Alex is well known for his book ‘Fossil Future’, and has been doing the Lord’s Work in disentangling various narratives and bad information put out there by those who seem not to understand the realities of electrical generation or grid capacity, and for whom the Internal Combustion Engine is literally Satan.
Alex also publishes here at Substack, and yesterday put out this interesting list of fallacies that antagonists of fossil energy use to have you believe that the government is somehow responsible for paying half the cost of the fuel you put in your vehicle.
His article here is worth a read, and extremely helpful when facing the daily onslaught of propaganda against modern human civilization and what makes it possible.
Some interesting quotes -
In 2022, the world used ~$3.7 trillion worth of oil (avg $100/barrel)
If fossil fuels get $5.9 trillion in subsidies, oil—37% of fossil fuel use—should get $2.2 trillion, which means ~$60/barrel!
We are to believe governments are paying oil companies the equivalent of $1.40/gallon of gas??!!
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The most popular ammo for multi-trillion-dollar health externalities is a Harvard “study” claiming 8.7M people annually die early from fossil fuels. But these “deaths” occur mostly in the developing world, where fossil fuels have lengthened billions of lives.
The Harvard study is based on highly speculative modeled pollution harm occurring mostly in developing countries, overwhelmingly China and India. Yet life expectancy in China and India has increased dramatically with energy use—overwhelmingly fossil fuel use.
Please enjoy these two pieces, and if you’re on Substack, Twitter, or other social media, give them a follow.
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Things are slowing down here at work, and I’m looking forward to getting more time to write for y’all - stay tuned.
If you enjoy this substack, and my podcast, please share them with others, especially my fellow truckers, whom I am sure would enjoy listening to it going down the road.
Happy Trails
Gord
In recent years there have been several efforts to charge trucks from overhead wires, so no time is lost and battery requirements are less. I know there have been demonstration projects in southern California https://techxplore.com/news/2017-11-overhead-wires-energy-trucks-california.pdf, Germany https://insideevs.com/news/546176/electric-truck-ehighway-overhead-cables/, and Sweden https://www.fastcompany.com/3061372/swedens-new-ehighway-powers-trucks-with-overhead-lines, and now I see a report from China https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/15/china_half_truck_half_tram/. Have we any evaluations of this?
“Energy is life” thus saith the Gord.