Comments by "Scott Franco" (@scottfranco1962) on "PragerU"
channel.
-
361
-
There are so many distortions of fact here it is hard to know where to begin.
First, "the car emits 1/3 of its emissions when produced". This is a comparison with zero, since, as the announcer details, gas powered cars emit %64 of the same emissions to make. Further, the emission costs to make a car are themselves highly dependant on the energy source of the factory that makes them. Thus Tesla, made in northern California, is largely powered by natural gas. Third, the "extra" emissions said in the video come from Lithium mining, which comes primarily from countries with little emissions controls on mining. Thus, there is every expectation that this will improve.
Forth, the "emissions" of an EV are highly dependent on the power source, and conversion of power in the USA is moving towards natural gas. In California it is the primary source. As pointed out elsewhere, the major source of coal based power in California is because of imports from other states that still use coal.
Fifth, the lifetime and scrapping of an EV is based on the idea that EVs have the same lifetime as gas cars, for which there no basis. There is every reason to believe that EVs will last longer than gas cars due to less wear and complexity.
Sixth, "renewables will only advance %3 in the next 25 years, meanwhile those fossil fuels will still generate %64 of power [in 25 years]". This is an incredible mixing of different facts to "prove" your point. Even IF that is true it discounts the rapid move away from coal to natural gas power generation. remember "EVs are coal powered"? your central thesis falls simply because of the changing mix of power generation, and you navigate around that fact.
Summing up, your misstatement of facts and conclusion based on navigation of the facts you like vs. the facts you don't like qualifies you perfectly to report for the Wall Street Journal, but it does not qualify you to lecture US.
331
-
23
-
16
-
16
-
15
-
12
-
11
-
8
-
6
-
6
-
5
-
5
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
By the way, I am conservative and don't regret the dropping of bombs on Japan, and even I don't believe the common explanation of nuking Japan. What the dropping of the bombs did is convince Japan that we could move from fighting a conventional war to fighting an almost "free" war that involved no men or materials, but simply flying over the island of Japan and slowly reducing it to a glowing pile of rubble. Remember that in those days nuclear bombs were not that powerful, and it would have taken dozens of nuclear weapons to bring Japan to its knees.
The dropping of the second nuclear bomb was necessary because Japan, which by the was NOT stupid or without spies and probably knew something about the a-bomb before it was dropped on them, had reason to doubt that we had more than one of the weapons. They would have been right. In fact, to drop a third one would have been a problem for us.
The idea of being able to fight wars with pushbuttons was short lived. With proliferation of nuclear weapons, even to just the USSR, meant that even the "unthinkable" conventional wars would be fought under a nuclear umbrella and in fact by proxy, as was exactly what happened. Thus the cost of war actually went up, not down (as it should be).
As for the current crop of crybabies wringing their hands over nuking Japan, the answer is simple. Nuke 'em again. They have been getting uppity of late, and that would put an end to this whole argument.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
The perhaps unfortunate, but true, parable of the forest fires applies here. As we civilized america, one of the things we "accomplished" is to TRY to stop forest fires. Smoky the bear and all that. How did that work out? we did indeed suppress forest fires for the most part, but that in and of itself changed the nature of the forests. More old growth occurred, with more bushes and undergrowth between the trees, and dead trees lingered longer in the forests.
Did we stop forest fires? No, we simply made them less frequent. The inevitable pileup of debris, dead trees and undergrowth would eventually require a good old fashioned fire to clear them out. What we DID accomplish is to make fires MUCH more deadly. When the inevitable fire did occur, the greater amount of stored up fuel caused an inferno, and also tended to be a completely land clearing event, vs. the old fires that burned through fast enough to leave existing plants and trees to regenerate.
We have tried to stop the business cycle, which clears out weak companies and leaves the strong ones. We have simply succeeded in making the inevitable downturns much, much worse.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The answer is a mix of natural gas an renewables. In the USA before the turn of the century, there was a push to switch to NG generation, which was slowed by a rise in NG costs. This set off a big push to build LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) shipping terminals so that we could import more NG, since one of the major issues with it were that some of the most abundant producers, like Quatar, were not reachable by pipeline.
Now, with fracking, NG is abundant, locally produced, and perhaps most importantly, there is no "peak NG" horizon in sight. The amount of pollution produced by power generation has gone down in the USA significantly, almost all due to the switch to NG. And NG plants are both cheaper than other methods of power production, nuclear, coal, hydro, etc, but far more flexible as well. Small plants can be built in city centers. "peaker" plants can be used to provide temporary power to cover shortages in renewable power, etc.
One of the biggest issues with renewable power is that it is not constant. This is why a mix of renewable power and NG power are a perfect complement for the forseeable future. Someday renewable power will be paramount, but until that day, mixed renewable/NG power will replace coal and nuclear plants and their issues (and yes, nuclear plants have issues). Even after renewables are the norm, NG will be used to cover heavy power applications such as steel and aluminum manufacture.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1