Rhetoric and reality
To the editor:
The push by the administration for electric cars only communicates the idea that electric cars don’t use fossil fuel which is the campaign rhetoric that Biden used to capture the environmental vote. What is not said is that most charging stations being installed for these cars use a diesel fuel generator to produce the electricity. So, the product that is to eliminate the need for fossil fuel uses fossil fuel to generate the electricity for charging electric cars!
The other issue that isn’t explained is that it takes typically 2-3 hours to charge for only 200 miles of travel. That greatly limits the use of the electric car.
From this we realize that we were not given the full story during the “promises” campaign. No one explained that the electric cars use fossil fuel to generate the electricity. What a surprise! And who wants to wait three hours while his car is charged? Not me.
For this, Biden has hampered the manufacturing of gas so that we are now paying $4.60/gallon and will very shortly pay $5 as the summer increase in gas usage arrives. In January 2021 when Biden was inaugurated the price was $2.33, about half of today’s prices. Can you imagine the worker who drives 20,000 miles per year who paid $2,330 every year for gas and now is paying $4,600. $2,300 extra is quite a bite from one’s paycheck after income tax. Many pay less for income tax. And the transportation cost of food, hardware, just about everything we buy has increased as well.
How has Biden hampered the manufacturing of gas in America? He shut down the construction of a very important pipeline that is safer and cheaper than railroad or truck transportation (that use fossil fuels) and makes it very economical to use Canadian oil. He has disallowed drilling in a considerable number of places and he has issued some executive orders that make the production of gas more expensive and difficult.
Our purchase of foreign oil has had to make up the difference. It isn’t that we are using less fossil fuel just more expensive imported fossil fuel. And that fuel is all transported by ships driven by fossil fuel engines unlike pipelines that use electric driven pumps.
This is like the production of Ethanol that was the cry decades ago. Today after spending billions in Ethanol subsidies, we realize the benefit of Ethanol is not what we were told and cost us a great deal more money. Not just subsides but the diversion of crops to ethanol has increased the cost of food, too. Ethanol production is a pollution generator, and not recommended on many cars. The rush to build ethanol plants has stopped and profitability is a problem now. Too good to be true like cars!
Biden has captured a large number of votes from this special interest at the expense of everyone who drives a car.
We are all environmentalists. Some, however are driven by emotion and don’t look at the cost and the total impact. Will they never learn?
John Benedict
Cape Coral