Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Professor Franco Montalto of Drexel University wants to slow runoff and allow parts of the city to flood, to mitigate damage from extreme rainfall and reduce runoff pollution.
Professor Franco Montalto of Drexel University wants to slow runoff and allow parts of the city to flood, to mitigate damage from extreme rainfall and reduce runoff pollution.
As climate change amplifies urban flooding, here’s how communities can become ‘sponge cities’
Published: May 8, 2024 4.03am AEST
Franco Montalto Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University
“When it rains, it pours” once was a metaphor for bad things happening in clusters. Now it’s becoming a statement of fact about rainfall in a changing climate.
Across the continental U.S., intense single-day precipitation events are growing more frequent, fueled by warming air that can hold increasing levels of moisture. Most recently, areas north of Houston received 12 to 20 inches (30 to 50 centimeters) of rain in several days in early May 2024, leading to swamped roads and evacuations.
Events like these have sparked interest in so-called sponge cities – a comprehensive approach to urban flood mitigation that uses innovative landscape and drainage designs to reduce and slow down runoff, while allowing certain parts of the city to flood safely during extreme weather. Sponge city techniques differ from other stormwater management approaches because they are scaled to much larger storms and need to be applied across nearly all urban surfaces.
As for the “sponge city” plan, this all sounds fancy and modern, but what about putting peoples homes first, and just building bigger drains?
In my subtropical town on the East Coast of Australia, we have street drains you can comfortably walk along. The kinds of rain which causes major flooding in San Diego, we call that “Wet Season”.
It takes weeks of heavy tropical deluge to even begin to flood those suspiciously flat areas in my town which nobody should ever have built on. Where I live on a slightly elevated location, it would take a direct hit from a tropical cyclone to do real damage. My home is very rarely threatened by floods, even when my street turns into a river – all the runoff water gushes harmlessly into our oversize drainage system, and within 20 minutes of the rain stopping all the surface water is gone.
I’m not denying runoff management plays a role, slowing water entry into river systems can reduce peak flood. But sometimes you just have to move the water very quickly to somewhere else.
In the article above Professor Franco Montalo emphasised the benefits of greener water management systems, such as reduced pollution wherever you are dumping the runoff. But if homes are threatened, who cares about a little pollution? Keeping people’s homes safe from floods should be the highest priority.
The more wind turbines we have the more useless they are
There goes those plans to cover the continental shelf with talismen to the Wind Gods.
New research shows wind turbines off the East Coast of the US could end up stealing as much as a third of the energy from other wind turbines downstream. And in some conditions, the turbulent wake they leave might stretch out 55 kilometers behind them. This effect is worst on turbines in the same “farm” but could even affect other wind farms a long way off.
The wake effect will be strongest in summer. We’ll just have to ask everyone to turn off their air conditioners then?
Scientific civilizations do this sort of research before they commit $10 trillion dollars, set up a trading scheme, and blow up the coal plants. Imagine if building a coal plant near another plant made it 30% less efficient on hot days…
“Using computer simulations and observational data of the atmosphere, the team calculated that the wake effect reduces total power generation by 34% to 38% at a proposed wind farm off the East Coast,” according to the University of Colorado. ”Most of the reduction comes from wakes formed between turbines within a single farm.”
“But under certain weather conditions, wakes could reach turbines as far as 55 kilometers (34 miles) downwind and affect other wind farms. For example, during hot summer days, the airflow over the cool sea surface tends to be relatively stable, causing wakes to persist for longer periods and propagate over longer distances.”
Figure 3Hub-height wind roses for the NYSERDA Hudson North (E05) and Hudson South (E06) floating lidars during the 1 September 2019 to 1 September 2020 period. The location of E06 is shown as the red diamond and E05 as the red triangle. The bottom row shows wind roses segregated by atmospheric stratification.
Ominously, the worst power deficits in these graphs are not the black spots but the red and white ones…
Figure 14The percentage of power loss at ONE from internal wakes at (a) TKE_0 and (b) TKE_100.
First build 10,000 wind farms, then figure out how it works:
To better understand how the wind blows in the proposed wind farm area, Lundquist’s team visited islands off the New England coast and installed a host of instruments last December as part of the Department of Energy’s Wind Forecast Improvement Project 3. The project is a collaboration of researchers from CU Boulder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other national laboratories.
The instruments, including weather monitors and radar sensors, will collect data for the next year or more. Previously, offshore wind power prediction models usually relied on intermittent data from ships and satellite observations. The hope is that with continuous data directly from the ocean, scientists can improve prediction models and better integrate more offshore wind energy into the grid.
As long as we try to collect wind energy, the nightmare of thousands of high voltage interconnector lines will never go away.
For the past couple of years, the BBC and the rest of the media have banging the drum about Mediterranean wildfires, claiming that they are now much worse than ever before thanks to climate change.
For the past couple of years, the BBC and the rest of the media have banging the drum about Mediterranean wildfires, claiming that they are now much worse than ever before thanks to climate change.
The full data has now been published by the EU, and it proves you have been lied to!
Last year the burnt area was only average, and the year before was nothing exceptional either:
The wildfires were bad last year in Greece, but they were far worse in 2007. But long term trends are not increasing, and most years in the last decade have recorded low levels of fire activity, compared to the 1980s and 90s.
The picturesque shores of Long Beach Island (LBI) in New Jersey could soon face an unexpected challenge, according to a recent report prepared by Tourism Economics for Long Beach Township. The proposal by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC to install wind turbines spanning over 100,000 acres of ocean off the coast is projected to have significant economic repercussions due to its potential to deter tourists.
The picturesque shores of Long Beach Island (LBI) in New Jersey could soon face an unexpected challenge, according to a recent report prepared by Tourism Economics for Long Beach Township. The proposal by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC to install wind turbines spanning over 100,000 acres of ocean off the coast is projected to have significant economic repercussions due to its potential to deter tourists.
Visual Disamenities and Tourism Decline
The report highlights the adverse effects of visible wind turbines on tourism, a crucial component of the local economy. Citing studies and employing economic modeling, the findings suggest a stark decrease in tourism, estimating a 25% reduction in visitors to LBI municipalities. This equates to a substantial loss of approximately 835,000 visitors annually, drawn from a 2022 baseline where LBI municipalities welcomed 3.3 million visitors who contributed $1.8 billion in visitor spending.
“Each year, Tourism Economics analyzes the impacts of the New Jersey visitor economy on behalf of VisitNJ. Based on Tourism Economics’ latest report, ‘The New Jersey Visitor Economy 2022’, Ocean County welcomed 10.3 million visitors and $5.4 billion in total visitor spending in 2022.”
This decline in tourism is expected to have a ripple effect through various sectors of the local economy. The report details a projected $450.2 million direct loss in visitor spending, which would lead to a total economic downturn of $668.2 million in Ocean County. This figure encapsulates not only direct losses but also indirect impacts (like purchases from local suppliers) and induced impacts (additional consumption generated by incomes linked to tourism).
“The $450.2 million in reduced visitor spending will generate $668.2 million in total economic losses throughout Ocean County. This total economic loss will include approximately 6,700 total lost jobs and $47.6 million in reduced state and local tax revenues.”
The economic contraction is projected to lead to substantial job losses, with an estimated 6,700 jobs affected. This includes direct, indirect, and induced job losses across various industries, significantly impacting local livelihoods. The associated labor income is also expected to decrease by around $169.5 million.
Fiscal Impacts
The fiscal health of both state and local governments will likely suffer as well. The report forecasts a decline in tax revenues totaling $145.3 million, encompassing federal, state, and local taxes. This includes $80.3 million in reduced state and local tax revenues, severely affecting the financial capabilities of these governments to provide public services.
The proposed wind turbine projects, pose a considerable threat to the economic vitality of Long Beach Island and surrounding areas. The loss of tourism, coupled with downward economic spirals in business activities, job markets, and tax revenues, paints a challenging picture for local stakeholders. Decision-makers are now faced with the critical task of weighing these potential economic impacts against the any imagined environmental benefits of renewable energy projects like offshore wind turbines.
The comprehensive analysis provided by Tourism Economics underscores the need for an approach that considers the economic realities of such significant infrastructural developments.
In Episode 433 of District of Conservation, Gabriella is recording from POMA Annual Meeting in South Carolina. She dishes on her personal best largemouth bass catch and shares two news updates regarding the Biden NEPA rule and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banning lab-grown meat. Tune in to learn more!
“Global elites want to control our behavior and push a diet of petri dish meat and bugs on Americans. Florida is saying no. I was proud to sign SB 1084 to keep lab-grown meat out of Florida and prioritize our farmers and ranchers over the agenda of elites and the World Economic Forum.” — Governor Ron DeSantis
In Episode 433 of District of Conservation, Gabriella is recording from POMA Annual Meeting in South Carolina. She dishes on her personal best largemouth bass catch and shares two news updates regarding the Biden NEPA rule and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banning lab-grown meat. Tune in to learn more!
In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
German weather site wetteronline.de reported “extreme winter cold” in Antarctica as the mercury plummeted to “almost minus 80 degrees Celsius” on April 29, 2024.
German weather site wetteronline.de reported “extreme winter cold” in Antarctica as the mercury plummeted to “almost minus 80 degrees Celsius” on April 29, 2024.
“On April 29, almost minus 80 degrees were measured at the Russian Vostok research station. Such extreme cold is rarely reached this early in the year,” reported wetteronline.de.
The record, -89.3°C, was recorded in the middle of winter, on July 21, 1983, thus making the last week’s late April reading very unusual.
“Values below minus 80 degrees in April are also extremely rare at the Earth’s cold pole and have only been recorded three times in the last 60 years,” wetteronline.de adds.
The hype, and the reality, about the energy transition in 10 charts
Cooling towers at India’s Mahatma Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, a 1,320 MW coal-fired power plant in Haryana. Photo: Wikipedia
Over the past few days, I’ve searched the NewsBank archive for uses of “energy transition.” One of the earliest uses of that now-ubiquitous phrase occurred in the Christian Science Monitor in 1981. In a dispatch from Nairobi, a reporter named Richard Critchfield explained that some “4,000 delegates from 154 countries” were gathering in the Kenyan capital for a two-week United Nations conference on new and renewable sources of energy. “The purpose of the conference,” Critchfield explained, was to “promote better understanding of the global energy transition from oil to such new sources as geothermal, solar, wind, ocean, and hydropower or energy from biomass, fuelwood, charcoal, peat, draught animals, oil shale, and tar sands.”
The article doesn’t mention climate change. Instead, it focuses on Kenya’s reliance on imported energy, the country’s geothermal potential, and the “classic third-world poverty trap of soaring oil costs and stagnant export earnings.”
Today, 43 years later, we are inundated with news reports about climate change and claims that we are in the midst of an energy transition that will eliminate our need for hydrocarbons. Myriad examples can prove that point, but consider the Earth Day press release from the White House. The April 22 release included the word “climate” 52 times and references the energy transition three times. For instance, it said President Joe Biden has launched a new “Clean Energy Supply Chain Collaborative to work with international partners to diversity supply chains that are critical to a clean and secure energy transition.” It continued, saying the president is “mobilizing other governments to follow the U.S. lead and commit to achieve net zero government emissions by 2040.”
Before going further, let me be clear about my politics. I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. I am Disgusted. I have no truck with either party. As a journalist focused on energy and power systems, my affiliation is with the math and the physics. My job is to spotlight the trends and the numbers and to separate the hype from the reality. Unfortunately, much of the media coverage about the energy transition is just that: hype. As I will show in these charts, the hype has soared during the Biden administration.
Last month, the EPA announced rules to “reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.” In the agency’s April 25 press release announcing the new regulations, the word “transition” appears three times. The EPA said it was providing “regulatory certainty as the power sector makes long-term investments in the transition to a clean energy economy.” It also quotes the BlueGreen Alliance’s Jason Walsh as saying the EPA mandate provides a “toolbox of critical investments targeted to the workers and communities experiencing the economic impacts of energy transition.”
In these 10 charts, I abide by W. Edwards Deming’s commandment: “In God we trust, all others must bring data.” The numbers I’m presenting aren’t my numbers, they are the numbers. Here’s what the media won’t tell you about the energy transition.
Chart 1
I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it: the concept of the energy transition is essentially a Western conceit. The U.S. and Western European countries are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on programs like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Energiewende to fund buildouts of solar, wind, batteries, and tutti-fruity-colored hydrogen, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world will do the same. There is no evidence that China and India are going through an energy transition. Instead, the numbers show those two countries are building staggering amounts of new coal-fired capacity. That capacity is far greater than the amount of nuclear capacity they are building. This chart, which I first published last December, uses updated figures from the International Energy Agency and Global Energy Monitor.
Chart 2
On April 30, Reuters reported, “India’s coal production and generation shattered records in March as miners and power producers made a Herculean effort to avoid a repetition of the fuel shortages and blackouts that hit the country two years ago. Domestic coal production soared to an unprecedented 117 million tonnes in March 2024, up from 108 million in March 2023 and 96 million in March 2022, according to data from the Ministry of Coal.”
The following two charts show that whatever emissions reductions are achieved in the U.S. and other big economies are being swamped by what’s happening in India and China.
Chart 3
This chart uses the same numbers as those in the previous chart, but putting them in a horizontal format makes them easier to comprehend. It also underscores the challenge of decarbonizing the Indian and Chinese economies.
Chart 4
I have published this graphic before. But I am using it again here because it spotlights the staggering growth of hydrocarbons compared to the growth of the two politically favored sources of power generation, wind and solar.
Chart 5
As mentioned above, the EPA’s new mandates could force the closure of all the remaining coal-fired power plants in the U.S. by the mid-2030s. The mandate, which faces a years-long legal battle before it could become law, claims the U.S. must act on climate change. However, the mandate will not affect China and India, which generate eight times more electricity from coal than the U.S.
Chart 6
More coal-fired capacity is being built in developing countries. And those new plants will result in more emissions. On March 1, the International Energy Agency reported that energy-related CO2 emissions “grew by 1.1% in 2023, increasing 410 million tonnes to reach a new record high of 37.4 billion tonnes. This compares with an increase of 490 Mt in 2022 (1.3%). Emissions from coal accounted for more than 65% of the increase in 2023.”
Furthermore, since 2019, according to Global Energy Monitor, China and India have added some 216 GW of coal capacity. One more number is relevant here: Those five countries have a combined population of 3.4 billion, or about 42% of all the people on the planet. Their electricity use is a fraction of the 12,000 kilowatt-hours per capita per year we use here in the U.S. For instance, in Bangladesh and Indonesia, electricity use is paltry: less than 500 and 1,200 kWh/capita/year, respectively.
Chart 7
I published this chart last month in “Natty Nation.” I’m using it again here because it illustrates the point at hand. Yes, China, India, and other countries are burning more coal. The U.S. is reducing its use of coal. And yet, despite massive federal subsidies and numerous mandates at the local and state levels, wind and solar energy aren’t keeping pace with the growth in natural gas.
Chart 8
The surging use of the term “energy transition” can easily be seen by searching the New York Times archives. Between 2019 and 2023, the use of that phrase jumped 10-fold.
Perhaps the most straightforward way to observe the surge in the marketing of the “energy transition” is to look at the number of times it has been used during the presidential terms of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Both, of course, are Democrats, and both, of course, have focused on climate. According the National Archives, Obama “believes that no challenge poses a greater threat to our children, our planet, and future generations than climate change — and that no other country on Earth is better equipped to lead the world towards a solution.” However, as seen in the graphic below, the Obama era had far fewer mentions of the energy transition than what has occurred under Biden. Indeed, that phrase has appeared more than 75,000 times during Biden’s presidency. Thus, the media has used the phrase “energy transition” 36 times more during Biden’s three-and-a-half years in the White House than during eight years of Obama’s presidency.
We can think this as the “Woozle Effect,” named after a Winnie The Pooh story by A.A. Milne. The Woozle Effect is also known as “evidence by citation,” which occurs when a source “is widely cited for a claim it does not adequately support, giving said claim undeserved credibility.”
Conclusion
The punchline here is obvious: We are not in the midst of a major energy transition. Instead, what we are seeing is the media echo chamber at work. Media outlets are giving undeserved credibility to the idea of the energy transition despite a metric ton of evidence that shows no such transition is happening, particularly in developing countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Indeed, the surge in the use of the phrase by the Biden administration — and its many allies in big media outlets — shows that we’re being bombarded by a public relations campaign that’s designed to convince the public and policymakers that an energy transition is happening and that we should be spending staggering sums of money on it.
A decade ago, energy analyst and polymath Vaclav Smil wrote, “hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is fueled mostly by wishful thinking and a misunderstanding of recent history.” He explained that “for any new energy source to capture a large share of the market require[s] two to three generations: 50 to 75 years.” He concluded, “Energy transitions on a national or global scale are inherently protracted affairs.” That statement was true in 2014. And will be true for decades to come. Just don’t expect to read about it in major media outlets.
The Hill posted an article discussing the fact that a recent survey indicates that the public’s concern about climate change is waning, especially among younger people, those we are constantly told are most concerned about and demanding governments take action to fight climate change. This poll’s results are confirmed by another recent independent survey which came to the same conclusion.
The Hill posted an article discussing the fact that a recent survey indicates that the public’s concern about climate change is waning, especially among younger people, those we are constantly told are most concerned about and demanding governments take action to fight climate change. This poll’s results are confirmed by another recent independent survey which came to the same conclusion. Despite a daily barrage of mainstream media stories alternately proclaiming “we have just X number of years fight to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions before it’s too late to save the planet,” or that we face a “climate crisis,” or that “climate change is an existential threat,” polls show the public is increasingly immune to the message.
Dozens of surveys conducted by a variety of noted polling organizations over the past two decades consistently demonstrate a few clear results: 1) a plurality or slight majority of the public (or registered voters, or people likely to vote—depending upon the polling organization’s criteria) are somewhat or very concerned about climate change; 2) when asked to rank climate change against other public policy issues of concern, climate change ranks last or near last among the issues of concern; 3) when asked how much those polled were willing to pay to fight climate change, or alternately the degree to which government should act to restrict or direct peoples’ choices to fight climate change, the answer is very little, to the former, or not much, to the latter.
Fewer Americans today see climate change as a “very serious” problem than they did three years ago, according to a new survey released Monday.
The Monmouth University poll, conducted on April 18-22 shows a 10-point decline in Americans who says climate change is a “very serious” problem, falling from 56 percent in September 2021 to 46 percent in April.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, attributed this trend to a decline in urgency among Americans.
“Most Americans continue to believe climate change is real. The difference in these latest poll results is a decline in a sense of urgency around this issue,” Murray said.
Perhaps surprising to many, the decline in concern among adults ages 18-34 was 17 points. In 2021 67 percent of that demographic said climate change was a “very serious” problem compared to just 50 percent in the most recent survey.
Interestingly, Monmouth’s survey found 27 percent of those surveyed did not believe climate change was happening or were unsure of it (an increase from 24 percent in 2021). And, almost as many survey participants believed human activities and natural changes in the environment were equally responsible for climate change (31 percent) as those who believed that human actions alone were responsible (34 percent).
The Monmouth poll is not really all that surprising to anyone who has closely followed surveys asking questions about climate change during the past two decades or longer.
On Earth Day, April 24, Breitbart reported on Gallup’s annual Earth Day poll, a survey it has undertaken since 2000. Its results were consistent with pervious Earth Day surveys. Finding the environment in general, and climate change, in particular, ranked very low on the list of the public’s issues of concern. Gallup’s 2024 poll found that despite decades of climate doomsaying fewer people worried a great deal about climate change in 2024 (42 percent) than were very worried about it in 2020, when the stated concern hit its high point (46 percent) in more than 20 years of surveys asking the question.
In Gallup’s survey a majority (55 percent), said they did not believe that climate change would pose a serious threat in their own lifetime.
Also, when ranked against other issues confronting the nation, as Gallup states: “Environmental Worries Lag Behind Economic and Social Issues,” which is also consistent with past surveys. And all of this is despite nearly two decades of climate alarm propagandizing in the mainstream media.
“Among the leading issues confronting the nation, the environment ranks as a lesser public concern, with 37% saying they worry a great deal about environmental quality,” Gallup reports.
In fact, worry about “the quality of the environment” (the category climate change was lumped into, tied for 11th place with “the availability and affordability of energy,” at 37 percent, out of the 14 issues of concern Gallup listed. Only race relations and unemployment at 35 percent and 33 percent, respectively, ranked lower. By contrast, more than 50 percent of those surveyed said that they worry a great deal about inflation, crime and violence, hunger and homelessness, the economy, affordable health care, and government spending. Concern about illegal immigration, drug use, the social security system, and the possibility of a terrorist attack all also ranked above concern about a quality environment.
Of course, climate change is just one environmental challenge lumped together under the category “quality of the environment.” When various environmental issues were polled individually, poll participants said pollution of drinking water; pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams; and contamination of soil and water by toxic waste were each more worrying to them than climate change. And this response comes despite the fact those topics collectively are rarely discussed by politicians, and never as an existential threat to human life, and get a fraction of the coverage climate change does.
It’s good when the media acknowledges the public’s true depth of concern about climate change and whether they believe it poses a credible threat to their lives or standards of living, rather than simply asserting it based on their writers’ personal beliefs and commitments to fighting climate change. The Hill and Breitbart are to be applauded for publicizing these recent surveys that most mainstream media outlets have largely ignored. The survey data show, that while a plurality of those surveyed are somewhat concerned about climate change, most think it will have little impact on their lives, and it ranks very low on the list of issues people think confront the United States and the world.
Safety concerns around electric vehicles continue to mount with Australian fire and rescue services in New South Wales stating they might have to make a “tactical disengagement” of a trapped car accident victim if the battery is likely to explode.
Safety concerns around electric vehicles continue to mount with Australian fire and rescue services in New South Wales stating they might have to make a “tactical disengagement” of a trapped car accident victim if the battery is likely to explode. Australian journalist Jo Nova covered the story, which was first mentioned in the EV blog The Driven, and commented: “They say the first responders need more training as if this can be solved with a certificate, but the dark truth is they’re talking about training the firemen and the truck drivers to recognise when they have to abandon the rescue.”
The Driven, a widely-read blog that seems highly sympathetic to a rollout of EVs, was reporting on recent testimony given to the NSW Government’s Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Batteries Inquiry. The writer suggested that first responders did not have adequate training to deal with electric vehicle collisions, and in the most serious cases, crews could be forced to abandon rescues. One particular area of concern seemed to revolve around the need to extract a trapped casualty quickly after a crash by dragging the person out in a “very undesirable manner”. Fires are a grave risk in any vehicle accident, but they can be quickly brought under control in an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.
Worries about the potential dangers inherent in EVs is likely to grow as numbers on the roads continue to rise. EV battery explosions can occur very quickly, triggering the release of highly toxic gases. When they roar into thermal overdrive, they create very high temperatures and are very difficult to extinguish. The explosion can occur after almost any collision, or be due to a fault in the initial manufacture. The fire often takes hours to control and it can reignited days after it was thought to be out. With Net Zero fanatics desperate to drive ICE cars off the road in short order, EVs are the only mass private transport solution offered. Many of the issues, including safety, that make them an inferior product compared to petrol-powered combustion cars are often ignored.
Just what can be involved in putting out a fire in an EV was dramatically detailed in a recent press release from the Wakefield Fire Dept in Massachusetts. It was called out to deal with a burning Tesla on a snowy Interstate 95, and reported:
Wakefield Engine 1 and Ladder 1 initiated suppression operations, applying copious amounts of water onto the vehicle. Multiple surrounding mutual aid communities responded as well to support firefighting operations and to create a water shuttle to bring water continually to the scene. Engines from Melrose, Stoneham, Reading, Lynnfield as well as a Middleton water tanker assisted. Firefighters had three 1¾-inch hand lines as well as a ‘blitz gun’ in operation to cool the battery compartment… Lynnfield crews established a continuous 4-inch supply line from Vernon Street up to the highway. The fire was declared under control and fully extinguished after about two and a half hours… The vehicle was removed from the scene after consulting with the Hazmat Unit… The crews did a great job, especially in the middle of storm conditions – on a busy highway.
There is little doubt that EV fires are on the rise. In the U.K., CE Safety runs Freedom of Information checks on local fire brigades and its latest survey shows an alarming rise in conflagrations. In Greater London in the 2017-2022 period, there were a reported 507 battery fires from a number of EV types, but CE Safety found a “gigantic” 219 conflagrations in 2022-23 alone. Lancashire was said to rank second with 15 EV battery fires, but this was 10 more in a single year than recorded in the five years between 2017-2022. Overall “it was concerning” to discover that the number of electric battery fires during 2022-2023 was higher in most areas than the data showed over five years from 2017 to 2022. During that year, 14 buses suffered battery fires.
There was a substantial increase in the number of e-bikes catching fire, with CE Safety noting that lithium is highly flammable and reactive. “Over-charging presents a massive risk to households with lithium-powered vehicles,” the safety organisation observed.
Concern is also rising over the transportation of EVs on car ferries. Recently, Havila Kystruten, which operates a fleet of car ferries around the coast of Norway, has banned the transportation of electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. According to a report in the Maritime Executive, it is the latest step by the shipping industry, “which has become acutely aware of the increasing danger of transporting EV and other alternate fuel vessels”.
Havila’s Managing Director Bent Martini said a risk analysis had shown a fire at sea in a fossil fuel vehicle could be handled by on-board systems. “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,” he said. That of course is the nightmare scenario. If fire breaks out on a ferry making a 20-mile crossing in good weather, the chances of all passengers and crew surviving are good. Less good, perhaps, if fire was to break out and fill the ship with toxic smoke in the middle of a stormy November night while crossing the Bay of Biscay. Chances of survival would be diminished if the high temperatures caused nearby EVs to explode.
Mercifully, we are less and less likely to see such accidents. The list of disadvantages of EVs is lengthening by the day. Environmental concerns about the manufacture and mining of raw materials have been raised, while ‘range anxiety’ is common among drivers. EVs are more expensive than ICE cars, while knackered batteries mean that second-hand values are very poor. For those who would see the back of them, the graph below might provide some comfort.
This shows the recent decline in the share price of the American car hire giant Hertz. Back in 2021, the company pushed ahead with huge purchases of Teslas. In January it dumped 20,000 of them, and last month pushed another 10,000 onto a sagging second-hand market. Out in the real world – the world where people create wealth by providing what other people actually want – fewer drivers seemed willing to hire them. The share price tells its own sorry story. Meanwhile, EV sales across Europe tend to be driven by unsustainable tax breaks, while the cars are mainly popular with wealthy people as a second or third city runabout. An enforced political adoption of EVs is likely to destroy vast swathes of the European car industry, unable to compete with cheap Chinese imports.
If the aim is to take away personal transport for the masses, EVs are an excellent idea. Whether that will ultimately play well at the ballot box is another matter.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
You probably need to see it to appreciate the challenges the automobile industry faces in transitioning to electricity. You also need to come here to understand how the Chinese industry’s overcapacity has flooded the European market.
Ten years ago this week, we posted one of out most viral stories, highlighting the over-capacity in the auto industry: “Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die,”which highlighted the ‘endgame’ of automakers’ ‘channel stuffing’ efforts to disguise the sudden lack of demand for all the exciting new models that they had forecast would boom to the moon..
Due to China’s overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.
You probably need to see it to appreciate the challenges the automobile industry faces in transitioning to electricity. You also need to come here to understand how the Chinese industry’s overcapacity has flooded the European market. That morning, as the sun unexpectedly lit up the maze of highways leading to this remote arm of the port of Antwerp, Belgium, a huge cargo ship from the Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners unloaded thousands of cars at one of the terminals of International Car Operators (ICO), a subsidiary of the Japanese group Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
Alongside Swedish-Norwegian Wallenius Wilhelmsen, it is one of the main operators of the now merged port of Antwerp-Bruges, the world’s largest automotive terminal, through which the production of some 40 brands used to transit. But that was before the emergence of their Chinese competitors.
Imported vehicles are seriously piling up at European ports, turning them into “car parks.” Automakers are distributors are struggling with a slowdown in car sales as well as logistical bottlenecks that make it hard to alleviate the buildup of new, unsold vehicles.
Some Chinese brand EVs had been sitting in European ports for up to 18 months, while some ports had asked importers to provide proof of onward transport, according to industry executives. One car logistics expert said many of the unloaded vehicles were simply staying in the ports until they were sold to distributors or end users.
“It’s chaos,” said another person who had been briefed on the situation.
This is another part of the escalating trade war between China and the rest of the world.
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