Political Left's Failed History Continues With Electric Cars
Updated: May 3
Kathleen Wells - The Political Left demonstrates a schizophrenic belief system that fails and tends to vacillate in time. If one lives long enough and pays attention, one realizes that the policies embraced by the Political Left have all been complete and utter failures. Here is a short list:
Nearly 60 years ago, the Great Society robbed social security to finance The Projects that no longer exist. The Projects turned into drug-ridden and crime-infested slums demeaning to human life. Meanwhile, generations that paid into social security, a progressive agenda item, are looking at the possibility of a bankrupt system and losing their entitlement.
Feminism began over 50 years ago with an agenda to disrupt the nuclear family and emasculate the American male. The outcome is a dysfunctional American family today: broken, blended, and fatherless. Feminism has not served most women either, having turned many women into husbandless workhorses. We now have a dysfunctional Family Court system that injects poor governmental oversight into people's lives.
20 years ago, there was a rush to switch to plastic bags from paper bags as humans were deforesting the planet causing an imminent ecological crisis. The plastic bags became urban tumbleweeds and they were redesigned to degrade quickly but the new design would rip too easily and require multiple bags to hold a fraction of the items the paper bags held. Now, the Millennials are calling plastics an ecological problem and we must return to paper as we vacillate back to the original circumstance.
The list of failed agendas is ever increasing and the resolve to correct the issue seems to be waning. The US is now poised for the next major debacle, Electric Vehicles or EVs. The background for this is a history of economic, environmental, technical, and international policies.
Thought leaders following World War II advanced a belief that economically interconnecting national economies would act as a force against war. Nations would be more concerned about their economic viability than going to war. This would have nations more likely to have economic factors drive power than belligerent actions to acquire seaports and land drive power. As an outcome of that effort, the devastating impact of propping China up with American dollars was unforeseen. This is not more evident than in the electric car agenda of the Political Left.
First, let's look under the hood of Electric Vehicles or EVs., Figure 1. These EVs have fewer parts as there is no need for gasoline engines, transmissions, drive shafts, and differentials all of which are made of common ores and make use of petroleum and its by-products. Electric vehicles require electric motors and large battery packs more advanced but equivalent to dozens of common car batteries. The electric motors require ores minerals to make the armatures and magnets. The armatures are made of metals often in a composite mixture to enhance conductivity and durability. The stators are magnets that are made of minerals and ores like neodymium iron boron (NdFeB), samarium cobalt (SmCo), alnico, and ceramic or ferrite magnets. The batteries work on an electronegativity difference between the component materials which are mined and include lead, cobalt, lithium, and manganese among other minerals in greater concentration for EVs than the status quo having a single small battery. Batteries are known to emit toxic and explosive fumes. When jumping batteries, the common practice is to connect to the battery terminal posts first and make the live connection which sparks to a metal grounded piece somewhere else to reduce the potential of igniting the battery fumes. Thus, EVs require more minerals to be mined and high-tech construction of the batteries than the status quo. EVs would dramatically reduce the use and recycling of common ores used in the status quo for an increase in more exotic and dangerous minerals.
China has operations throughout the world to mine these minerals and control the world's supply of raw materials. This was propped up and made possible by the US dollar. In Africa, China is devastating African national ecologies where they have mining operations. In the Congo where there are Chinese-owned and operated mines, slave and child labor are in use; The Disturbing Reality of Cobalt Mining for Rechargeable Batteries,
Once the “humanitarian activists” realize slave labor and child labor are used in the Congo to mine the cobalt needed for rechargeable EV batteries, will there be activists on our streets holding placards and slogans insisting that electric cars are abhorrent or will they look the other way? Which issue is more pressing slave and child labor or Global Climate Change? We saw in The Projects the Political Left created hell on Earth for the people there. There are an unbelievable number of known adverse outcomes to EVs. Will the entire US economy convert over to EVs in support of China's mining operations?
Are we simply creating economic opportunities for a solution and its business owners not selected by market forces?