Update: World Not Following California on Decarbonization

A worker uses a torch to cut steel pipes near the coal-powered Datang International Zhangjiakou Power Station at Zhangjiakou, in China's northern Hebei Province on Nov. 12, 2021. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

California keeps barreling ahead—in an electric vehicle, of course—pushing “decarbonization.” The Sacramento Bee headlined April 19, “Climate bills on fossil fuel divestment, emissions disclosure make headway.” But what’s the rest of the world doing?

Everybody knows it’s dangerous to depend on Communist China for all those lithium batteries powering the decarbonized economy. Bloomberg reported in March, “China Could Control a Third of The World’s Lithium by 2025. Increased output to include dirtier lepidolite, says [investment bank] UBS.”

So the world is beginning to move toward sodium batteries instead. But wait. The New York Times reported April 12, “China is far ahead of the rest of the world in the development of batteries that use sodium, which are starting to compete with ubiquitous lithium power cells.” Part of the story:

“Out of 20 sodium battery factories now planned or already under construction around the world, 16 are in China, according to Benchmark Minerals, a consulting firm. In two years, China will have nearly 95 percent of the world’s capacity to make sodium batteries.”

Maybe we should have stuck with good old American combustion engines in cars, using the proper anti-pollution devices.

China’s Ultra-Carbonization

Here’s a new phrase I just thought up: ultra-carbonization. This is what Communist China is doing, instead of shunning carbon energy. Also in March, NPR reported:

“China permitted more coal power plants last year than any time in the last seven years, according to a new report released this week. It’s the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021.

“That’s despite the fact that much of the world is getting off coal, says Flora Champenois, coal research analyst at Global Energy Monitor and one of the co-authors of the report.

“‘Everybody else is moving away from coal and China seems to be stepping on the gas,’ she says. ‘We saw that China has six times as much plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.’”

Since the Chinese Communist Party decided to ditch their ludicrously restrictive COVID lockdown, their economy is taking off. And for that it needs energy. CNN reported April 18:

“China’s economy got off to a solid start in 2023, as consumers went on a spending spree after three years of strict pandemic restrictions ended.

“Gross domestic product grew by 4.5% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. That beat the estimate of 4% growth from a Reuters poll of economists.”

Not Enough US Decarbonization Workers

This is amusing. The same politicians forcing us to a premature shift from the carbon fuels that powered American’s rise also dumbed down our education system. The result, according to Wired: “The Race to Decarbonize America Needs More Workers. The US already has all the technology needed to rapidly bring down carbon emissions. The trouble is finding enough people to install it all.” It quoted Mark Paul, an environmental economist at Rutgers University:

“The green transition is going to generate upwards of 25 million new jobs [in the US] in the next 15 years—this is just going to be a tremendous transformation of the US workforce. You can’t outsource the installation of heat pumps or solar panels on somebody’s roof to China or Bangladesh.”

To do that, America would have to shift from teaching nonsense in politically correct “woke” classes and shift to vocational schools teaching plumbing, carpentry, tool and die, brick laying, car mechanics, crane operation, and other essential jobs in what is called “skilled trades.” Those jobs often pay as well as some of the mid-level professions.

Most of my family back in Michigan in the middle of the last century were in skilled trades, especially tool and die. Before taxes were raised on the middle class to pay for the welfare state, it was enough for a man to raise a large family on one income.

That shift isn’t happening. So it looks like the decarbonization mania might end, because there’s nobody able to fix the power grid as the Teslas stack up on the side of the road.

California Goes National

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mandate of 100 percent of new vehicles sold in California being electric by 2035 is spreading. “The Biden administration is proposing rules to ensure that two-thirds of new cars and a quarter of new heavy trucks sold in the United States by 2032 are all-electric,” reported the New York Times. The paper waxed poetic in its enthusiasm:

“The new rules would require nothing short of a revolution in the U.S. auto industry, a moment in some ways as significant as the June morning in 1896 when Henry Ford took his ‘horseless carriage’ for a test run and changed American life and industry.”

Reuters added:

“Under the proposal, the EPA estimates 50% of new vocational vehicles like buses and garbage trucks could be EVs by 2032, along with 35% of new short-haul freight tractors and 25% of new long-haul freight tractors. Medium-duty vehicle rules are projected to cut emissions by 44% over 2026.”

But as I have reported in the Epoch Times about California, there’s no way the mandates can be kept even here. The problems are the same nationally, but more acute: Electric cars are more expensive than gas-powered cars, so only the wealthy can afford them. The power lines can’t handle the new load. And because there isn’t enough renewable energy—wind and solar—more carbon-based power plants will have to be built, including from coal.

Greenwire reported April 18:

“The Biden administration’s electric vehicle plan bets the U.S. will be able to secure enough critical minerals to electrify up to two-thirds of the nation’s new cars within less than a decade.

“But industry experts say the plan rests on assumptions that are bullish given volatility in the still-burgeoning mineral markets, a disconnect that could undermine one of President Joe Biden’s most aggressive climate rules.”

Conclusion

Basically, to advance Biden’s draconian new electric vehicle mandate, he’ll have to shut down the U.S. economy until Communist China produces enough processed lithium and sodium for the batteries, and the U.S. trains enough skilled tradesmen in vocational schools that don’t exist. It’s a recipe for America turning into Communist Cuba, where there are few new cars except for the bigshots. And regular people must use ancient, rickety cars held together with bailing wire.

The main difference will be that Cuba’s 1950s steel cars are a lot more stylish than today’s plastic and aluminum jobs.

John Seiler’s email: [email protected]

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.