Why the U.S. Electric Grid Isn't Ready for the Energy Transition

Right.

And California is banning gasoline-powered, internal-combustion engines by 2035.

We won't be ready.

At the New York Times, "To start with, there is no single U.S. electric grid":

America’s fragmented electric grid, which was largely built to accommodate coal and gas plants, is becoming a major obstacle to efforts to fight climate change. https://t.co/F35tJbxJMg

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 12, 2023

The U.S. electric grid is often described as a vast, synchronized machine — a network of wires carrying electricity from power plants across the country into our homes.

But, in reality, there is no single U.S. grid. There are three — one in the West, one in the East and one in Texas — that only connect at a few points and share little power between them.

Those grids are further divided into a patchwork of operators with competing interests. That makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide.

America’s fragmented electric grid, which was largely built to accommodate coal and gas plants, is becoming a major obstacle to efforts to fight climate change. Tapping into the nation’s vast supplies of wind and solar energy would be one of the cheapest ways to cut the emissions that are dangerously heating the planet, studies have found. That would mean building thousands of wind turbines across the gusty Great Plains and acres of solar arrays across the South, creating clean, low-cost electricity to power homes, vehicles and factories.

But many spots with the best sun and wind are far from cities and the existing grid. To make the plan work, the nation would need thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines — large power lines that would span multiple grid regions.

To understand the scale of what’s needed, compare today’s renewable energy and transmission system to one estimate of what it would take to reach the Biden administration’s goal of 100 percent clean electricity generation by 2035. Transmission capacity would need to more than double in just over a decade....

There are enormous challenges to building that much transmission, including convoluted permitting processes and potential opposition from local communities. But the problems start with planning — or rather, a lack of planning.

There is no single entity in charge of organizing the grid, the way the federal government oversaw the development of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and ‘60s. The electric system was cobbled together over a century by thousands of independent utilities building smaller-scale grids to carry power from large coal, nuclear or gas plants to nearby customers.

By contrast, the kinds of longer-distance transmission lines that would transport wind and solar from remote rural areas often require the approval of multiple regional authorities, who often disagree over whether the lines are needed or who should pay for them.

“It’s very different from how we do other types of national infrastructure,” said Michael Goggin, vice president at Grid Strategies, a consulting group. “Highways, gas, pipelines — all that is paid for and permitted at the federal level primarily.”

In recent decades, the country has hardly built any major high-voltage power lines that connect different grid regions. While utilities and grid operators now spend roughly $25 billion per year on transmission, much of that consists of local upgrades instead of long-distance lines that could import cheaper, cleaner power from farther away.

“Utilities plan for local needs and build lines without thinking of the bigger picture,” said Christy Walsh, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Study after study has found that broader grid upgrades would be hugely beneficial. A recent draft analysis by the Department of Energy found “a pressing need for additional electric transmission” — especially between different regions.

The climate stakes are high... 

Konstantin Kisin at the Oxford Union (VIDEO)

His speech was a bit of a sensation on Twitter.

WATCH: 

Crazy People Are Dangerous (and They’re Working for the Biden Administration)

At the Other McCain, "Sam Brinton is self-evidently crazy. He is daft, deranged, bonkers, berserk, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Exactly why Joe Biden would appoint this lunatic to a job working with nuclear technology in the Department of Energy — well, Democrats do crazy things all the time, and appointing a “genderfluid” kook to be Deputy Assistant Secretary is probably about par for the course."

'Biden: Releasing 15 Million More Barrels of Oil Reserves Right Before Election ‘Not Politically Motivated at All!’'

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, a huge roundup, "GREAT MOMENTS IN MALARKEY."

Russia Nationalizes ExxonMobil's Holdings in Sakhalin-2 Oil and Gas Project at Sakhalin Island, Russia

This should be front-page news everywhere. 

ExxonMobil wrote down $3.4 billion relating to it's exit from the Sakalin-2 development. 

I'm gobsmacked at stories like this. We've toppled Third World regimes for less. And now? The war in Ukraine drags on and on in its ugly attrition stalemate. How many times are we going to hear, "Ukraine Forces Make Gains in Zaporizhzhia!," or whatever? *Eye-roll.*

At the Wall Street Journal, "Russia Wipes Out Exxon’s Stake in Sakhalin Oil-and-Gas Project":

Energy company says it has left the country after Moscow transferred its holding to Russian entity.

The Kremlin has pushed Exxon XOM 0.18%▲ Mobil Corp. out of a major Russian oil-and-gas project and transferred the Texas oil giant’s stake to a Russian entity, according to the U.S. company.

Moscow blocked Exxon’s efforts to transfer operatorship and sell its 30% stake in the Sakhalin-1 venture in Russia’s Far East for months, and has now wiped out Exxon’s stake entirely. Exxon on Monday described Moscow’s move as expropriation and said it had pulled out of Russia.

The Kremlin didn’t provide any indication that it would pay Exxon for the value of its stake. Exxon said it has left its legal options open under its production-sharing agreement and international arbitration law. If the company pursues legal action, the matter could take years to resolve.

The largest U.S. oil company vowed in March to leave Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, saying it would make no further investments in the country. It had cultivated ties with Russia for decades, but had withdrawn from at least 10 other joint ventures after the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia following its 2014 invasion of Crimea. Sakhalin-1 hadn’t been covered by those sanctions.

Exxon declared force majeure in April, and reduced production from the Sakhalin Island development to about 10,000 barrels of oil and natural gas a day, from 220,000. It also took a $3.4 billion accounting charge related to its Russia exit in the first quarter.

European oil companies with interests in Russia have also worked to exit from the country. In February, Shell SHEL 0.06%▲ PLC said it would exit the Sakhalin-2 venture, another oil-and-gas project in Russia’s Far East, and BP BP 0.00%▲ PLC said it would exit its nearly 20% stake in state-run Rosneft.

Exxon’s exit was particularly complicated because it operated the project and is responsible for safety and environmental measures. The project hasn’t been fully shut down, in part because it provides power to the residents of Sakhalin Island, which is an environmentally sensitive area. Finding a counterparty capable of handling the complex project had been a difficult task. Exxon had operated Sakhalin-1 since the 1990s.

“Our priority all along has been to be a responsible operator by protecting employees, the environment and the integrity of operations at Sakhalin-1,” Exxon spokeswoman Meghan Macdonald said.

Reuters reported Exxon’s exit earlier Monday.

Exxon and its partners had a production-sharing agreement in place since the 1990s. Exxon Neftegas Ltd., a unit of the U.S. oil company, owned 30% of the project and was its operator. Rosneft owns 20%, while Japan’s Sodeco and India’s ONGC Videsh separately own portions.

Exxon expects about 700 employees of its Russian unit to transition to the new operator.

A decree from President Vladimir Putin this month handed Exxon’s stake to a newly created Russian company and said Exxon and other foreign partners of the Sakhalin-1 consortium could apply for ownership in the new entity. Exxon’s exit signals it has no plans to apply for ownership in the project...

Californians Survive the Heatwave --- Barely

I was beginning to wonder when it was going to cool down. Phew, that was one hella heatwave. And Californians dodged a bullet, it turns out.

This article's from last week.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California averts widespread rolling blackouts as energy demands ease amid heat wave":

For nearly three hours Tuesday night, California officials warned of imminent rolling blackouts as the state’s electrical grid struggled to keep up with surging demand during a punishing heat wave.

The Golden State avoided widespread outages, though three Northern California cities experienced brief losses of power.

At 8 p.m., the California Independent System Operator downgraded its level 3 alert, the final step before calling for rolling blackouts, saying that “consumer conservation played a big part in protecting electric grid reliability.”

There were “no load sheds for the night,” the grid operator said; however, Alameda, Palo Alto and Healdsburg officials said they implemented short “rotating outages.”

In Alameda, municipal utility officials said at 6:20 p.m. that rotating outages were beginning. Power would be shut off to two circuits for one hour, according to Alameda Municipal Power.

Just before 7:30 p.m., utility officials in the Bay Area city said the second hour of power interruptions had been called off.

“No more rotating outages for tonight,” the utility said in a tweet. “Crews are working to get power restored to all customers shut off in the initial hour of outages.”

City officials in Healdsburg confirmed outages around 6:30 p.m.

“As directed by CAISO, rolling power outages to begin,” according to a Facebook post by the Sonoma County city.

Outages lasting about an hour per zone would cycle through each block until the energy shortage is over, the city officials said.

“Due to lower system loads, the need for rotating outages has ended,” city officials said at 8:10 p.m.

Palo Alto officials said around 7 p.m. that they had been cleared to restore power to about 1,700 customers after outages to meet Cal ISO’s “load-shedding requirements.” “We did not order rotating outages,” Anne Gonzales, an ISO spokesperson, said in an email to The Times on Tuesday night. “We held at [Energy Emergency Alert] 3 with no load shed, and [the alert] ended at 8 p.m.”

Gonzales did not respond to several requests for clarification by phone.

Shortly after 7 p.m., Cal ISO noted that peak grid demand had hit 52,061 megawatts, “a new all-time record.”

The alert did not affect Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers, as the utility operates its own grid and is separate from Cal ISO.

“We’re not suspecting any blackouts due to energy shortages and are not a part of any rolling blackouts [Cal ISO] has planned,” said Mia Rose Wong, a spokesperson for the municipal utility.

The DWP forecast Tuesday’s demand to be elevated but not enough to surpass available electrical generation and reserve capacity, Wong said.

Nevertheless, the utility advised its customers to conserve power and follow the state grid regulator’s guidance, including setting thermostats to at least 78 degrees and not using large appliances.

In addition to urging its customers to reduce energy use, the DWP makes excess power available to Cal ISO when available, Wong said, though it was not clear whether there was any excess power Tuesday night.

The heat wave is now expected to last through Friday, but the worst of it could be over for the southern half of the state — even as temperatures remain dangerously high.

For much of Northern California, the heat was expected to peak Tuesday, but temperatures are predicted to remain well above average through the week, according to the National Weather Service.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the weather service confirmed that downtown Sacramento had set an all-time temperature record. A preliminary high of 115 degrees broke the previous record of 114 set on July 17, 1925, meteorologists said. About an hour later, officials reported that the temperature had topped out at 116.

The state capital has seen a barrage of extremes over the last year, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and California climate fellow at the Nature Conservancy, said in a tweet Tuesday evening.

“First its longest dry spell on record, which ended with wettest day on record, followed by driest start to a calendar year on record, now followed by its hottest day on record,” Swain wrote.

In Hanford, the weather service office stated that as of 3 p.m., “all major weather reporting airports in the San Joaquin Valley have set daily record temperatures.”

Four cities in the Bay Area broke maximum temperature records tallied on any day of the year, according to the weather service.

San Jose’s temperature of 109 Tuesday beat the previous all-time high of 108, set Sept. 1, 2017.

Santa Rosa’s high of 115 broke the high of 113 set in 1913; Napa’s 114 broke the record of 113 set in 1961; and King City in Monterey County hit 116, breaking the record of 115 set in 2017.

Redwood City in San Mateo County hit 110, tying the record set in 1972...

Umm, You Would Think: Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running in Policy U-Turn

Leftists are so stupid, and they're proving with their disgusting, hypocritical u-turn on nuclear energy, which is obviously one massive key to reducing so-called climate changing emissions, though it's reallly not about that in the end. Leftists, like Germany's Greens and Socialists, want power and control. I mean, *everyting* is caused by climate change now, like making kids fat. 

I can't.

At WSJ, "Move prompted by the mounting economic war with Russia marks the first departure from a two-decade policy to abandon nuclear energy":

BERLIN—Germany plans to postpone the closure of the country’s last three nuclear power plants as it braces for a possible shortage of energy this winter after Russia throttled gas supplies to the country, said German government officials.

While temporary, the move would mark the first departure from a policy initiated in the early 2000s to phase out nuclear energy in Germany and which had over time become enshrined in political consensus.

The decision has yet to be formally adopted by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet and would likely require a vote in Parliament. Some details are still under discussion, three senior government officials said. A cabinet decision would also need to wait on the outcome of an assessment of Germany’s energy needs that will be concluded in the coming weeks but which the officials said was a foregone conclusion.

Still, while a formal decision could be weeks off, the government believes two key conditions allowing a temporary extension of the life of the three remaining plants, now expected to close on Dec. 31, have been met: Germany is facing a likely shortage of gas and letting the reactors operate longer poses no safety concern, the officials said.

“The reactors are safe until Dec. 31, and obviously they will remain safe also after Dec. 31,” a senior official said.

The plan underlines how deeply Moscow’s attack on Ukraine has scrambled politics in Europe, and particularly in Germany, which long enjoyed close economic relations with Russia and whose economy had grown highly dependent on Russian natural-gas supplies.

Shortly after the invasion, Mr. Scholz moved to ramp up military spending and deliver arms to Ukraine, breaking with years of pacifism and a legal ban on the delivery of offensive weapons in conflict zones. The nuclear move, while limited and temporary, would break a third long-held taboo in German politics.

Mr. Scholz hinted at the decision last week, saying for the first time that it could make sense to keep Germany’s last three nuclear reactors online.

A spokeswoman for the Economy Ministry, which oversees energy, denied that the government had made a decision on extending the life of the plants, adding that it would depend on the findings of the continuing assessment of Germany’s power needs.

Extending the life of the three plants beyond their current closing date is no panacea for Germany’s looming energy bottleneck this winter. The country is mainly missing natural gas, which is used primarily for heating and manufacturing.

Yet by allowing the plants, which together account for around 6% of the country’s electricity production, to stay online, Berlin would remove the need to replace them with gas- or coal-powered plants, allowing gas to be used in areas where it can’t be replaced by other fuels.

Mothballed coal plants have already been brought back online to prevent energy blackouts after Russia slashed gas supplies in June, a decision that will complicate Berlin’s plans to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and reduce air pollution. The government has also drafted two executive orders outlining measures to reduce gas and power consumption in the country over the next two years, including by lowering the temperature in public buildings. The country’s energy regulator estimates that gas consumption will need to be cut by 20% if Germany is to avoid a gas shortfall this winter and next.

It is unclear for how long the reactors will continue to operate past the December deadline. The three officials said the extension would only be for a few months. Leading figures in the Free Democratic party, the government’s third coalition partner, have said the plant should run into 2024.

Several officials said that the extension would only affect the three plants that still operate today and that Berlin wasn’t considering reopening plants decommissioned earlier, including three that were shut down last winter.

The nuclear extension is fraught with technical, legal and political hurdles. Laws may need to be amended to allow for the reactors to remain online and obtain fresh fuel rods. Complex certification as well as insurance and nuclear-waste disposal procedures could be required.

It is also politically sensitive. The nuclear phaseout was initiated by the Social Democrats and Greens, the leading parties in the current coalition, and has become part of the parties’ identities, particularly for the Greens, a party that was born out of the antinuclear movement.

Leading Green politicians have already accepted a short extension of the nuclear-power generation. Ludwig Hartmann, the Greens’ parliamentary floor leader in the state of Bavaria, said that the life of reactors could be prolonged for a “few months” if the region faced the risk of power shortages.

The opposition conservatives, the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who greatly accelerated the phasing-out of nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011, now also favors extending the plants’ lifespan.

“Not everyone [who keeps using nuclear energy] in the world is stupider than us,” Friedrich Merz, chairman of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, said in a recent radio interview.

While the phaseout has for years enjoyed overwhelming popular support, a recent survey by the Forsa Institut polling group showed three quarters of Germans wanted the planned reactor closures to be postponed. Forsa said it had recorded a gradual shift in public opinion in favor of keeping the plants online since Russia invaded Ukraine in February...

The Anatomy of Germany's Reliance on Russian Natural Gas

Just announced, Putin's cutting natural gas deliveries to Europe by 20 percent. At WSJ, "Russia to Cut Europe’s Gas Flow via Nord Stream to 20%."

And earlier, at Der Spiegel, "The Anatomy of Germany's Reliance on Russian Natural Gas":

The Americans warned Germany, as did the Eastern Europeans. But Germany just continued buying more and more natural gas from Russia. The addiction stretches back several decades, and it is full of misjudgments and errors.

Matthias Warnig. If you don’t know the name, he is a German natural gas executive. And a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin's. The czar's loyal courier. Or the dark Rasputin of German gas policy. Whichever you like.

Warnig, CEO of Nord Stream AG, the company behind the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline that leads from Russia to Germany, is sitting in the lobby of a Berlin hotel in early May. He has the self-confidence of a man who has his own initials stitched onto his shirts. Or, should we say, Warnig had that self-confidence? Was a friend of Putin’s? Thought that he knew Russia?

It almost certainly isn't good for your self-confidence when you end up on an American sanctions list and can no longer withdraw money from the cash machine as a result – and even the online shop where you used to order your coffee capsules has cut ties with you. But even more than self-confidence, say those close to him, Warnig has lost his self-conviction.

Just a week prior to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Warnig was in Moscow. Even at that late date, he still thought that Putin wouldn’t simply throw away all that Warnig had been working toward for half his life: The Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2. Investments adding up to over 9.5 billion euros. The German-Russian energy partnership that also played a significant role in Germany's reunification – at least in Warnig's view. Now, he is faced with digesting his radical misjudgment of his friend Vladimir.

Peter Altmaier is also intimately familiar with Germany's natural gas imports and the reliance on Russia that expanded year after year. The mutual dependence – money for gas. Altmaier, sitting in a Berlin beer garden on a recent afternoon, approaches it with the sobriety of the historian he always wanted to be. But instead of pursuing his academic inclinations, he became former Chancellor Angela Merkel's environment minister, her chief of staff and, in his last cabinet position, economics minister, a post he held until the end of 2021.

No, Altmaier says, he wasn't wrong about Putin, insisting he had long suspected the Russian president might be dangerous. He says that when Putin marched into Georgia in 2008, he jettisoned any illusions that he might still have held about what the Russian president was capable of: pure brute force. But Altmaier erred nonetheless, not believing that it would ever be possible for Germany to come up with the idea of withdrawing from Russian gas on its own accord. He wasn't prepared for it, and neither was the country he helped lead. In a sense, he is the personification of the German-Russian schizophrenia – political opponents but natural gas allies – which was to guarantee cheap natural gas as a bridge to a new era. Gas was seen as the buffer for Germany's shift to renewable energies, a shift that only made halting progress during Altmaier's tenure as economics minister. Today, he finds himself forced to admit that he miscalculated regarding the time Germany had at its disposal to make the shift.

Jürgen Hambrecht also knows plenty about natural gas, in the way a junkie knows all about the drug he yearns for and knows precisely how to obtain it. Hambrecht was a natural gas addict. Or rather, the company that he led for many years was addicted: BASF, the multinational chemicals conglomerate based in Ludwigshafen, one of the largest consumers of natural gas and energy in the republic. Hambrecht receives his guest in the BASF restaurant, where the pairing of a glass of Riesling with the fish is no mistake – just as Hambrecht fails to see where his company might otherwise have committed errors. BASF was a main driver of Germany's gas romance with Russia, and actively helped bring the gas into the country through its subsidiary Wintershall. Good, cheap tonic, mainlined through a pipeline and transformed into chemicals by BASF and used as energy for the country.

It's just that Germany's political leaders, Hambrecht believes, went down the wrong path. First, the phaseout of nuclear energy, and then the phaseout of coal, amounting to an overreliance on natural gas from Russia. What should be done now? Hambrecht doesn't see liquefied natural gas and green hydrogen, both of which won't really be available within the decade, as real alternatives. "We can't just turn off the gas," Hambrecht warns, and he is also opposed to a natural gas embargo. At BASF alone, the jobs of some 40,000 people depend on reliable natural gas inflows. What Hambrecht has trouble understanding, though, is how Germany could have made such huge mistakes in its energy policy...

Keep reading.

 

Germany Reboots Coal-Fired Plants as Russia Chokes European Energy Supplies

This is a tough time for the climate change cult.

Reality's punching through their worldview of unicorns, rainbows, and electric cars.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Germany Steps Up Measures to Conserve Gas as Russia Slows Supply to Europe":

Berlin to restart coal-fired plants and auction gas to reduce consumption.

Gazprom has blamed the shortfall on missing turbine parts that were stuck in Canada due to sanctions. European officials and analysts dismissed the explanation.

Germany imports about 35% of its natural gas from Russia, down from 55% before the war, and uses most of it for heating and manufacturing, according to German government estimates. Last year, power generation using natural gas accounted for about 15% of total public electricity in Germany, Mr. Habeck said, adding that the share of gas in power production has likely fallen this year.

To accelerate the decline of gas in the power mix, Mr. Habeck outlined a number of steps the government was taking to reduce reliance on gas and build up stores for the coming winter.

In a U-turn for a leader of the environmentalist Green Party, which has campaigned to reduce fossil-fuel use, Mr. Habeck said the government would empower utility companies to extend the use of coal-fired power plants.

This would ensure that Germany has an alternative source of energy but would further delay the country’s efforts to slash carbon emissions.

“This is bitter,” Mr. Habeck said of the need to rely on coal. “But in this situation, it is necessary to reduce gas consumption. Gas stores must be full by winter. That has the highest priority.”

The legislation affecting the use of coal is expected to be approved on July 8 in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, Mr. Habeck said. The measure expires on March 31, 2024, by which time the government hopes to have created a sustainable alternative to Russian gas.

Mr. Habeck also said the government would introduce an auction system that would motivate industry to reduce consumption.

The government released no details about how the auction would work, but Mr. Habeck said it would begin this summer.

Mr. Habeck said the new measures are aimed at diverting the dwindling gas deliveries from Russia into storage tanks to be used during the winter.

 

'That Doesn't Feel Like $150 Worth of Groceries'

From Samuel Gregg, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "Why inflation is worse than you think."

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping

Any person with a brain knows this. Electric vehicles are for driving around town, not built for the road: 😎

At WSJ, "Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn’t soon do it again":

I thought it would be fun.

That’s what I told my friend Mack when I asked her to drive with me from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric car.

I’d made long road trips before, surviving popped tires, blown headlights and shredded wheel-well liners in my 2008 Volkswagen Jetta. I figured driving the brand-new Kia EV6 I’d rented would be a piece of cake.

If, that is, the public-charging infrastructure cooperated. We wouldn’t be the first to test it. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866—over 4% of the total market, according to database EV-volumes. More than half of car buyers say they want their next car to be an EV, according to recent Ernst & Young Global Ltd. data.

Oh—and we aimed to make the 2,000-mile trip in just under four days so Mack could make her Thursday-afternoon shift as a restaurant server.

Less money, more time

Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each. We’d need to charge once or twice each day and plug in near our hotel overnight.

The PlugShare app—a user-generated map of public chargers—showed thousands of charging options between New Orleans and Chicago. But most were classified as Level 2, requiring around 8 hours for a full charge.

While we’d be fine overnight, we required fast chargers during the days. ChargePoint Holdings Inc., which manufactures and maintains many fast-charging stations, promises an 80% charge in 20 to 30 minutes. Longer than stopping for gas—but good for a bite or bathroom break.

The government is spending $5 billion to build a nationwide network of fast chargers, which means thousands more should soon dot major highways. For now, though, fast chargers tend to be located in parking lots of suburban shopping malls, or tethered to gas stations or car dealerships.

Cost varies widely based on factors such as local electricity prices and charger brands. Charging at home tends to be cheaper than using a public charger, though some businesses offer free juice as a perk to existing customers or to entice drivers to come inside while they wait.

Over four days, we spent $175 on charging. We estimated the equivalent cost for gas in a Kia Forte would have been $275, based on the AAA average national gas price for May 19. That $100 savings cost us many hours in waiting time.

But that’s not the whole story.

Charging nuances

New Orleans, our starting point, has exactly zero fast chargers, according to PlugShare. As we set out, one of the closest is at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Slidell, La., about 40 minutes away. So we use our Monday-morning breakfast stop to top off there on the way out of town.

But when we tick down 15% over 35 miles? Disconcerting. And the estimated charging time after plugging in? Even more so. This “quick charge” should take 5 minutes, based on our calculations. So why does the dashboard tell us it will take an hour?

“Maybe it’s just warming up,” I say to Mack. “Maybe it’s broken?” she says.

Over Egg McMuffins at McDonald’s, we check Google. Chargers slow down when the battery is 80% full, the State of Charge YouTube channel tells us.

Worried about time, we decide to unplug once we return to the car, despite gaining a measly 13% in 40 minutes.

When ‘fast’ isn’t fast Our real troubles begin when we can’t find the wall-mounted charger at the Kia dealership in Meridian, Miss., the state’s seventh-largest city and hometown of country-music legend Jimmie Rodgers.

When I ask a mechanic working on an SUV a few feet away for help, he says he doesn’t know anything about the machine and points us inside. At the front desk, the receptionist asks if we’ve checked with a technician and sends us back outside.

Not many people use the charger, the mechanic tells us when we return. We soon see why. Once up and running, our dashboard tells us a full charge, from 18% to 100%, will take 3-plus hours.

It turns out not all “fast chargers” live up to the name. The biggest variable, according to State of Charge, is how many kilowatts a unit can churn out in an hour. To be considered “fast,” a charger must be capable of about 24 kW. The fastest chargers can pump out up to 350. Our charger in Meridian claims to meet that standard, but it has trouble cracking 20.

“Even among DC fast chargers, there are different level chargers with different charging speeds,” a ChargePoint spokeswoman says.

Worse, it is a 30-minute walk to downtown restaurants. We set off on foot, passing warehouses with shattered windows and an overgrown lot filled with rusted fuel pumps and gas-station signs. Clambering over a flatcar of a stalled freight train, we half-wish we could hop a boxcar to Chicago.

Missed reservations

By the time we reach our next station, at a Mercedes-Benz dealership outside Birmingham, Ala., we’ve already missed our dinner reservations in Nashville—still 200 miles away.

Here, at least, the estimated charging time is only an hour—and we get to make use of two automatic massage chairs while we wait.

Salesman Kurt Long tells us the dealership upgraded its chargers to 54-kW models a few weeks earlier when the 2022 Mercedes EQS-Class arrived.

“Everyone’s concern is how far can the cars go on a charge,” he says. He adds that he would trade in his car for an EV tomorrow if he could afford the $102,000 price tag. “Just because it would be convenient for me because I work here,” he says. “Otherwise, I don’t know if I would just yet.”

A customer who has just bought a new BMW says he’d consider an EV one day—if the price drops.

“You remember when the microwave came out? Or DVD players?” says Dennis Boatwright, a 58-year-old tree surgeon. “When you first get them the prices were real high, but the older they are, the cheaper they get.”

When we tell him about our trip, he asks if we’ll make it to Chicago.

“We’re hoping,” I say.

“I’m hoping, too,” he says.

 

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich Attacks Oil Companies, Calls for 'Windfall Tax on Higher Profits' (VIDEO)

Secretary Reich is a smart guy --- and he's always been a man of the left --- but he used to be more free-market, more for regular labor union agitation and better wages, etc. 

Nowadays, he sounds more and more like a doctrinaire Marxist. He's a Professor of Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley, so he's being marinated in the nasty stew of woke campus leftism. 

And here he's calling for a "windfall tax" on oil companies. 

Extreme tax proposals are de rigueur for Democrats these days. Bernie Sanders is calling for a 90 percent marginal tax rate on the wealthy. Thankfully, the idiot Dems will be out of power next January. President Biden's going to have to compromise on reviving domestic energy production, and if things go right, a Republican will win the 2024 general election.

Honestly, I love the guy, but please let it not be Donald Trump. One Trump term was enough.

Watch, at CNN, "CEOs at major oil companies come under fire for high gas prices."

Germany: What if the Gas Is Cut Off?

At Der Spiegel, "German Industry Prepares for Worst-Case Scenario":

German industry and the government in Berlin are ill-prepared for a possible halt in supplies of natural gas from Russia. A new emergency plan is being developed to prevent an economic meltdown if deliveries cease.

You can find something from Hinrich Mählmann just about everywhere you look in Germany. His company, the Otto Fuchs Group, founded in 1910, literally delivers the things that make the country move. They include wheels and coupling systems for railroads, engine components for the aviation industry and even battery housings for electric cars. Mählmann also sells thermally insulated windows and doors through its subsidiary Schüco. The supplier has revenues of just under 3 billion euros annually and employs 10,000 people.

If the family business in the small town of Meinerzhagen in the western German state of North-Rhine Westphalia was suddenly no longer able to manufacture its goods, the German economy would have a problem. Without Mählmann’s upstream products, manufacturing in entire industries would be at risk – from car factories to construction.

Until now, such a horror scenario seemed unthinkable. To supply what German industry so urgently needs, the company operates aluminum presses "as heavy as the Eiffel Tower," as Mählmann says, plus large furnaces and smelters. The plants consume vast quantities of natural gas, an energy source that the group, like thousands of other companies across Germany, obtains to a large extent from Russia.

Currently, Mählmann is busy preparing for the possibility of the day when natural gas from Russia may no longer flow. It would be a "catastrophe," says the businessman. Turning off a gas-powered furnace for several hours a day is virtually impossible, he says. Doing so would cool them down, and bringing it back up to temperature would consume a disproportionate amount of time and energy. And replacing gas with electric power is out of the question: It would make no sense environmentally or economically. Relocating the machines would also be impossible due to their sheer size and the cost. "The plant would have to shut down," says Mählmann.

He pleads for gas imports not to be frozen completely and for the energy source to instead be rationed if necessary to at least "keep everything running on the back burner."

Germany on the back burner, a country in emergency mode. These are the kinds of considerations Germany is making right now across all sectors, industries and trades. What if Russia turns off the gas? Or the European Union bows to the growing pressure and imposes an import ban itself? Who would then get the much-coveted raw material? Which rules would fall into place? As of today, it seems certain that private consumers and their heating systems would be given the priority. Drug manufacturers and hospitals as well as public infrastructure are also at the top of the list.

After that, things get tricky. Should those industries be supplied with gas, at least in part, whose products are urgently needed by others for further processing? Or is it really a matter of only the most urgent needs, a war economy in which it is the security of supply counts and no longer the continuity of industry?

Germany is extremely ill-prepared for this worst-case scenario. A "Gas Emergency Plan for the Republic of Germany" has been in place since September 2019. But it is based on a fundamental miscalculation: In the very first pages, it states that the natural gas supply situation in Germany is "highly secure and reliable." And that the likelihood of a massive supply crisis is "very low." ...

Keep reading. 

Joe Biden's Dangerous Energy Policy

It's Newt Gingrich, at Newsweek, "Biden's Energy Policy is Helping Dictators and Harming Americans."

As Soon as Political Outsider Takes Office We Have Cheap Gas, Cheap Food, Become Energy Independent, and No Wars

Via Instapundit, "YEAH, PRETTY MUCH":

California Gas Prices Hit More Than $5.00 Per Gallon on Average for First Time, Breaking Record Highs for the State (VIDEO)

I'm glad I'm not commuting to work everyday. I teach online. You wouldn't believe the continuing strong demand for online classes. Kids don't want to come back on campus, and not just because they might get sick. No, they like "going to school" in their pajamas. They don't have to pay for gas, parking, and maintenance on their vehicle. 

My college administration was stunned when on-campus classes were under-enrolled for the spring semester, which was supposed to be the first time everyone was fully "on-campus" since March 2020. 

Didn't work out that way. Even employees aren't looking to go back if their gasoline budget balloons to $600 a month and counting.

Following up from yesterday, "Gas Prices in Los Angeles," at KABC News 7 Los Angeles:

Biden Wokeness on Energy Is Weakness

From Ned Ryun, at American Greatness, "Wokeness on Energy: Is Weakness Biden’s energy policy is bankrupting the country and making us a paper tiger abroad?"

Gas Prices in Los Angeles

On Twitter earlier today:

Now this would be accurate price for Los Angeles: pic.twitter.com/Jo34sNPtM7

— Donald Douglas 📘 (@AmPowerBlog) March 6, 2022

Electric Vehicle Batteries Exploding at General Motors' Orion Assembly Plant, Lake Orion, Michigan

You have to read the whole thing.

The Orion plant shifted to manufacturing 100 percent electricity vehicles, the Chevrolet Bolt, and with an epidemic of battery explosions, G.M. laid off the entire workforce.

Because the shift to green energy is going so swimmingly

At Pirate's Cove, "Oops: GM Electric Vehicle Batteries Keep Exploding":

The crisis involving the Chevrolet Bolt was a painful reminder for the auto industry that despite treating the electric vehicle era as essentially inevitable - a technical fait accompli - significant obstacles to manufacturing the cars, and especially their batteries, continue to threaten that future...

Yes, threatening the future, as I've been blogging recently.

Be smart. Don't buy an electric vehicle.  

Five-Star Emporium of Ambition in Kinshasha

Following-up, "A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution."

At NYT. "On the Banks of the Furious Congo River, a 5-Star Emporium of Ambition":

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — The lobby of the Fleuve Congo Hotel was a swirl of double-breasted suits and tailored dresses one April morning. Shiny gold watches dangled from wrists. Stilettos clacked across marble floors. Smooth jazz played as men in designer loafers sipped espressos.

Situated on the banks of the muddy, furious Congo River, the Fleuve is an emporium of ambition in a nation that, despite extreme poverty and chronic corruption, serves up raw materials crucial to the planet’s battle against climate change.

The soil in the Democratic Republic of Congo is bursting with cobalt and other metals used in the production of electric car batteries, wind turbines and other mainstays of the green energy revolution. Practically everyone who passes through the hotel, where the air conditioning battles the sweltering heat, seems determined to grab a piece of the wealth.

Just off the lobby that day, near a sumptuous brunch buffet, sat Dikembe Mutombo, the 7-foot-2 former NBA all-star player. He had teamed up in his quest for mineral riches with Gentry Beach, a Texas hedge-fund manager who is a family friend and major fund-raiser to former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Mutombo shared his table with a top Congolese mining lawyer turned politician whose office is conveniently located in a complex near the hotel.

As the clean energy revolution upends the centuries-long lock of fossil fuels on the global economy, dealmakers and hustlers converge on the Fleuve Congo Hotel.

Felix Tshisekedi, the Congolese president, top in the gray suit, arrived this spring at the Fleuve Congo Hotel in Kinshasa.Credit...

Situated on the banks of the muddy, furious Congo River, the Fleuve is an emporium of ambition in a nation that, despite extreme poverty and chronic corruption, serves up raw materials crucial to the planet’s battle against climate change.

The soil in the Democratic Republic of Congo is bursting with cobalt and other metals used in the production of electric car batteries, wind turbines and other mainstays of the green energy revolution. Practically everyone who passes through the hotel, where the air conditioning battles the sweltering heat, seems determined to grab a piece of the wealth.

Just off the lobby that day, near a sumptuous brunch buffet, sat Dikembe Mutombo, the 7-foot-2 former NBA all-star player. He had teamed up in his quest for mineral riches with Gentry Beach, a Texas hedge-fund manager who is a family friend and major fund-raiser to former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Mutombo shared his table with a top Congolese mining lawyer turned politician whose office is conveniently located in a complex near the hotel.

Mr. Mutombo is among a wave of adventurers and opportunists who have filled a vacuum created by the departure of major American mining companies, and by the reluctance of other traditional Western firms to do business in a country with a reputation for labor abuses and bribery.

The list of fortune hunters includes Erik Prince, the security contractor and ex-Navy SEAL; Jide Zeitlin, the Nigerian-born former chief executive of the parent company of Coach and Kate Spade; and Aliaune Thiam, the Senegalese-American musician known as Akon.

All have been drawn to Congo’s high-risk, high-reward mining sector as the demand for cobalt has skyrocketed because automakers around the world are speeding up plans to convert from gasoline- to electric-powered fleets.

Most recently, Ford Motor, General Motors and Toyota announced they would spend billions of dollars to build battery factories in the United States. The price of cobalt has doubled since January, and more than two-thirds of the global supply is here in Congo.

The Fleuve became the go-to luxury destination after a politically connected Chinese businessman — himself a mining dealmaker — was awarded a contract to run what had once been an abandoned 1970s-era office building. The now five-star hotel has usurped the elite status of its competitor next door, built in the 1960s with U.S. government financing, and it is the kind of place where swashbucklers arrive by private plane trailed by paparazzi, and where some guests keep suitcases of cash and nuggets of gold locked in their rooms.

The frenzied atmosphere at the hotel reflects a pivotal moment for the country — and the world — as the clean energy revolution upends the centuries-long lock of fossil fuels on the global economy.

“Congo is the one who is going to deliver the EV of the future,” Mr. Mutombo, the retired basketball player, said of electric vehicles. “There is no other answer.”

But such bravado signals trouble to some seasoned business people, who see a lot of show and little substance in the new class of deal seekers.

“The country has become the prey of international adventurers,” said Jozsef M. Kovacs, who built the neighboring hotel, originally an InterContinental, which once hosted waves of executives from major Western mining companies that had billions of dollars in capital available to them and decades of mining experience. A handful of those traditional investors remain in Congo, including Robert Friedland, founder of Vancouver, B.C.-based Ivanhoe Mines. But Ivanhoe’s operations are now in large part financed by Chinese investors, who dominate the industrial mining sector in Congo.

“You don’t have a lot of these Fortune 500 mining companies,” said Luc Gerard Nyafé, a regular at the Fleuve who advises the Congolese president and is pursuing mining interests here. “That is something that needs to change.”

But for now, at least, the adventurers have taken center stage, and sometimes their ambitions converge at the Fleuve. Ambassadors, mercenaries, celebrities, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs — they all pass through...