EV

Y’all Come Back Now

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

A lot has changed since 1962, and nowhere more so than in California.

Back then the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family from the hills of the Ozarks, moved to posh Beverly Hills, California, after striking oil on their land.  They struck it rich when ole Jed, who could barely keep his family fed, was shooting at some food.

And, wouldn’t you know it, up from the ground came a bubbling crude.  Black gold, Texas tea they called it.

His kinfolks told patriarch Jed that California was the place to be.  So he packed up his 1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 truck, powered by a four-cylinder, V8, 43 hp motor, and headed to Beverly.

Non-U.S. migrants are still very welcome there, but migration within the United States has reversed course.  Many more American citizens are headed out of California than in.  They may not like Texas tea, but they like Texas.

Would Jed, Granny, Elly May, and Jethro still be welcomed there?  Possibly so, but they’d need to make a few changes to be accepted.

For starters, Jed would need to leave his gun behind in Missouri.  Gun-free zones are all the rage now, plus assault rifles are greatly frowned upon.

Also, shooting at a critter to eat would greatly upset the PETA folks.  And, nowadays there is such a thing as a free lunch, especially if you look as ragtag as they did.

But most importantly that 1921 combustion engine, fossil fuel burning truck must go.  Acting progressively California lawmakers last week moved to require all new vehicles in the state to run on electricity by 2035.

But, it will come in handy for a while prior, especially for the next week.  Likely due to climate change, most of Cali is enduring a heat wave that will greatly tax the electrical power grid.

The good Gov. Gavin Newsom took time away from planning for his 2024 Democratic Presidental nominee run on Wednesday to sign an executive order that will allow the state to try to ramp up electricity supply.

The California Independent System Operator(CISO) has warned that stress on the energy grid could lead to blackouts and called for consumer conservation for the next several days.  CISO is asking consumers to avoid using major appliances and charging electric vehicles between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

To summarize (see what we did there?) Cali doesn’t have enough electricity during the heat wave to service electric-powered needs that will be legally required to reverse global warming by forcing electricity upon its faithful.

The Clampetts need not worry about running the washing machine for clean clothes though.  Granny uses a good old washboard.

And, they have that old cement pond out back to keep cool in.

The last one leaving California, please turn out the lights.  Of course, if it’s between 4-9 PM they might not be on.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

 

 

iPods, Smoking, and Combustion Engines

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Did you or do you own an iPod?  Did you ever smoke cigarettes?  Will you trade in your gas guzzler when the time comes for an electric vehicle(EV)?

Yesterday the mother of all companies in tune with what people want/need, Apple, ended production on the tunes machine that changed how we listened to music-the iPod.

Why did they discontinue the iPod?  It’s pretty simple.  Apple and its competitors innovated.  You can listen to music, podcasts, etc. right from your phone from a variety of sources better known as apps.   The sound quality is amazing.

The life span of the iPod was a short but successful 20 years or so.  Innovation changed the game.

Cigarettes, regardless of brand, went from “smoke them if you got em” during WWII, to sexy in the ’60s, to the surgeon general warning us in the ’80s about how bad they were for your health, to frowned upon in the ’00s, to almost extinguished in the ’20s.

The lifespan of Winston, which “tastes good like a cigarette should,” was multiple generations.  Medical science changed the game.

In 1886, Carl Benz began the first commercial production of motor vehicles with internal combustion engines. By the 1890s, motor cars reached their modern stage of development.

The gasoline-powered car stands as one of the great inventions ever.  It revolutionized how we got around, how far we could go, and who we were.

And, a quick 130 or so years later it’s in the fight of its life.  EVs cometh.  And so does the government.

Sure, EVs are innovations to gas-powered cars and trucks like the phone is to the iPod.  Sure(we presume), EVs are healthier for our planet like not smoking is to smoking.

But this one feels forced.  Shouldn’t we let nature, innovation, education, and consumer preferences take their course?

“Biden admin’s new NEPA permitting rules will basically stop new oil and gas production,” wrote renowned economist Larry Kudlow yesterday.  “The Keystone XL pipeline is gone.  Alaska drilling is gone. Other smaller pipelines are gone. Those decisions have already been made by Biden’s Energy and Interior departments and his EPA.”

And, now new leases in the Gulf of Mexico have been canceled.  Additionally, Russian oil is off-limits and gasoline at the pump is already at an all-time high.

These new NEPA rules are so restrictive that they will slow down the $1 trillion infrastructure bill they passed including the green infrastructure (windmills, solar).  All projects will be subject to direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impact reviews.

So while we are in a rush to go green, far-reaching regulations were passed that will now make us inspect the government-funded (read as you funded) green infrastructure projects to ensure they’re green.  We’re spending a lot of green for all of this.

Are you seeing red yet?  Your eyes are fine.  It’s probably just all of that government red tape that you are seeing.

Like baby formula, we’d like to see the supply of gas catch up with the demand for gas.  It would lower prices.  That would allow us to keep a bit of what we earn so that when taxes are raised to pay for all of this that government can’t afford, we’ll be able to afford to do so.

Eventually, won’t EVs win out? Capitalism drove us this far so to speak.

Until then, we’d like to “fill er up” a time or two more without going into what’s left of our savings accounts.