In its bid to cut planet-warming emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 from 1990 levels, the European Commission has proposed a 100 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions from new cars by 2035.

That means it would be impossible to sell combustion engine cars from then.

European Parliament lawmakers backed the proposals this month, before negotiations with EU countries on the final law took place.

Speaking at an event hosted by Germany’s BDI industry association, Lindner said there would continue to be opportunities for combustion engines.

So a ban was wrong, he confirmed, saying the government would not agree to this European legislation.

But Lindner, a member of the pro-business Free Democrats, which shares power with the Social Democrats and Greens, said Germany would still be a leading market for electric vehicles.

By speeding the shift to zero-emission electric vehicles, the EU aims to tackle the quarter of EU emissions that come from transport, which in recent years have been rising.

Firms including Volkswagen have already announced plans to stop selling combustion engine cars in Europe by 2035, but some industry groups have warned against banning a specific technology, and said more ambitious targets can only be met if policymakers support a massive rollout of charging infrastructure.

The EU is also negotiating proposals to require countries to install public charging points at regular intervals along major roads.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/22/germany-refuses-to-agree-to-eu-ban-on-new-fossil-fuel-cars-from-2035

The post Germany refuses to agree to EU ban on new fossil fuel cars from 2035 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It’s starting to look a lot like sabotage.  If the goal was to ruin our way of life, dismantle everything that made America great, and drag us all into a gay, trans-sexual whirlwind, the government media and corporate bosses couldn’t try any harder.  We have to be “flexible” enough to abide another round of emergency mandates.  The little twerp in a lab coat will decide.

I nearly lost it when I heard Nancy (Dad used to say she’d managed to get a permanent look of surprise on her face) say that the oil companies couldn’t be allowed to take advantage of the situation to roll back all they’re doing to “save the planet.”  Someday we’re going to find out that she can’t even save herself, let alone the “planet.”  They employ the term as if the “planet” is within their power.  None of these goofs can save the “planet.”  Electric cars aren’t going to do it either.  But if you watch TV you’d think that we have no choice.  And no, buying one won’t make you “iconic,”  but you might get stranded.

The government won’t call a temporary halt to the egregious taxes on gasoline, but the occupant is releasing America’s strategic oil reserves to bring the price down, temporarily.  Let’s hope we don’t need it.  What will it cost to replace, or are there any plans for that?  Buying oil from Venezuela and Iran?  Revisiting the Iran Deal, with Russia on our side of the table?  What on earth?

God blessed this country with massive oil reserves.  But everybody from the pretender to the corporations and the media is on board with paying enemies to produce our energy.  It’s the craziest thing!  It’s this green boondoggle.  Obviously the pretender is more anxious to keep the squad happy, if it puts us all out of business.

The Disney company is acting like it can demand woke nonsense and take on Florida. The state has passed legislation making it illegal to bring adult themes into the school rooms of little children.  Disney has made it their priority to abolish the law. They think that NOT teaching little children about weird non-sense is “targeting” them.  We grew up in a time that nobody would dare expose us to this clap-trap.  Not anymore.  Maybe you’ve seen the video of one of their executives saying that she has two “queer” children, and explaining that there need to be more “gay and transgender” characters in their movies.  Then YOUR children have a chance of turning out like hers.  Isn’t that exciting?

Glenn Beck made a point that bears repeating.  The activists didn’t go after Warner Bros, or Paramount, they’ve taken over Disney.  The company that provides entertainment for children and families.  The White House is taking a stand along with the Department of Education.  Children must be taught about all the weirdness at a tender age, otherwise it’s “tragic” and they’re being “targeted.”   They don’t need to know.  Neither do we.  Don’t tell us.

The mainstream has done everything to couch the war in Ukraine as simply as possible.  Ukraine good, Russia bad.  But Ukraine is hardly a haven for Disney “values.”  It would be entertaining for one of these undercover outfits to send a tranny to Ukraine to help out.  They don’t suffer this stuff lightly over there.  Neither Russia nor China are the least bit amused with our stated “values.”  But we’re not supposed to know that.

It used to be entertaining to lampoon the lunatics destroying freedom. It’s not funny anymore.  Last week’s Update warned about the media’s new discovery.  The occupant’s family has been banking vast sums from Eastern European countries and China for years.  It’s all documented, and will be made public in spite of the social media companies and the mainstream trying to silence word of it for years.  Only a few months ago, they’d cancel you cold if you dared Tweet or Facebook the stuff now making headlines.  They called it “Russian disinformation,” and you might just be “Putin’s puppet” if you were shown to be saying anything about it publicly.

But alas.  The flagship papers now admit that it’s all true, without accepting any responsibility for attempting to deceive the public.  The laptop from you know where is not “Russian disinformation.”  They’ve finally admitted it.  What we knew and understood before the last presidential election, banned from polite company by the big bosses is now the stuff of headlines!  They’re reporting things we knew two years ago and calling it “Breaking News.”  What a farce!

Uh oh.  Hunter will have to plead guilty to everything to avoid a trial that would implicate the “big guy.”  What a conundrum!  It couldn’t have happened to a nicer family.  Even with the millions, they can’t afford it.  Neither can we.  They call us “haters” if our beliefs line up with the Bible.  Sticks and stones…

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 1 April 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Are electric cars (EC) really greener and eco-friendly? They seem to be a great solution to fight climate change and they are even said to have zero emissions. But are they worth it? Is it true that they are harmless to the planet?

“Climate change is, quite simply, an existential threat for most life on the planet – including, and specially, the life of humankind.”

Said António Guterres, the Secretary-General the United Nations, in May 2018. But he’s not standing alone. From the IPCC to NASA, WWF or CDP, all these important entities agree on this phenomena’s spin-off and are committed to fighting it.

From the loss of sea ice and the increase in sea levels to the occurrence of extreme events such as hurricanes, droughts or intensive heat waves, it’s hard to deny the dimension of what we are fighting here. And there’s more to come if we reach the temperature increase of 2° Celsius.

In an attempt to minimize these consequences, scientists have been looking into what may be the main causes of climate change. They found out that greenhouse gases (GHG) like carbon dioxide, methane or nitrous oxide, and aerosols are changing the atmosphere and leaving the planet more exposed.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed out that of the 49 Gt Co2 eq released into the atmosphere in 2010, 14% was released by transportation vehicles. And despite being already a big number, this doesn’t even consider the Co2 impact of complementary activities such as manufacturing vehicles or getting road surfaces worn.

As cars make up 72% of the Co2 emissions in this sector (followed by planes, with 10%), the market of electric cars has been growing and seems to be a good solution to fight climate change. But is it true that EVs have zero emissions?

Are Electric Greener Than Fossil Fuel Powered Cars?

The fundamental difference between conventional, thermal cars and electric cars has to do with the process of transforming the potential (stored) energy into kinetic (movement) energy.  In thermal cars, this energy is stored in a chemical form and is released through a chemical reaction inside the engine.

On the other hand, despite also having chemically stored energy, electric cars release it electrochemically without any kind of combustion, thanks to lithium-ion batteries. This means that there is no fuel being burned and therefore no air pollution through CO2 happening while driving. They are also more efficient than fossil cars. So is this a clear win for the electric movement? Are electric cars and vehicles greener?

Not necessarily. Or better said, not always. If the source of energy to power these cars doesn’t come from solar panels, wind turbines or even nuclear or hydroelectric, their CO2 emissions will be much higher. For instance, if the electricity used to charge cars comes from the burning of fossil fuels, it doesn’t matter if the EC are not polluting while being driven, as this pollution was already released in some distant power plant.

This means that if you’re driving an electric car in the US, where fossil fuels accounted 62,7% of the country’s energy production in 2017, you’ll probably release more CO2 into the atmosphere than if you’re driving it in Iceland, that runs almost entirely on hydro, geothermal and solar energy.

As for the UE28, forecasts are encouraging, being expected that the EU grid mix will come down from 300gCO2 eq/km in 2015 to 200gCO2 eq/km in 2030, and 80gCO2 eq/km in 2050. But let’s assume a scenario where cars are 100% powered with renewable or clean energy. Could we then say electric cars have zero emissions?

Does The Manufacturing Of Electric Cars Have Zero Emissions? How Eco-Friendly Is The Process?

The cycle of making a car starts with raw materials being extracted, refined, transported, and manufactured into several components that will be assembled to produce the car itself. This process is very much the same in both conventional and electric cars. Nevertheless, at the end of the manufacturing process, electric cars are the ones generating more carbon emissions, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Why is this? Because electric cars store energy in large batteries (the larger they are, the bigger their range is) that have high environmental costs. This happens because these batteries are made of rare earth elements (REE) like lithium, nickel, cobalt, or graphite that only exist beneath the surface of the Earth and therefore depend on mining activities with very polluting processes. That’s why asking whether electric cars are greener or not does come with an easy answer.

For instance, to produce 1 ton of REE, 75 tons of acid waste (that isn’t always handled in the right way) and 1 ton of radioactive residues are also made, according to the Chinese Society of Rare Earths. In spite of these pollution issues, research tells us not to worry about the availability of these rare earth elements and when it comes to lithium, there is data estimating enough worldwide reserves for the next 185 years, even if the EC market triples, according to the Deutsche Bank. As for cobalt, graphite, and nickel, they also seem to be in a comfortable situation, since the demand for the years to come is expected to stay far away from the reserves Earth has to offer. Although it looks like everything will work out just fine, let’s not forget the negative environmental impact of extracting REEs.

Apart from the weight of the REE, the energy used to produce the batteries themselves is also responsible for nearly half of their environmental impact since most of this energy doesn’t come from low carbon sources. Nevertheless, forecasts show that the electricity generation is improving and there are more renewable sources entering the grid, which would help decrease the ecological footprint of building up these batteries.

On the other hand, developing renewable energy systems has its impact as well, again using energy and REE. In the end, we should be reasonable about this and despite their initial footprint, the impact of lithium-ion batteries, when compared to conventional cars, is offset within 6 to 16 months of average driving (using clean energy) in the US or 2 years in the EU. From this moment on, EC keep being a better eco-alternative to conventional cars until their battery gets to the end of its life cycle. But what happens next? How are lithium-ion batteries being handled when they’re no longer useful for electric cars?

Where Do Electric Cars’ Batteries Go To? Are They Recycled In An Eco-Friendly Way?

No, electric cars are not zero-emissions vehicles. We have seen that although they do not emit CO2 while being driven, they might do it in 3 other stages: during manufacturing, energy production, and at the end of their life cycle. In the first case, the need for mining activities to extract the rare earth metals that are used in batteries is very energy-consuming and polluting.

As for energy production, if the car is being powered with energy from burning fossil fuels, it is still releasing CO2 in the atmosphere, not from the tailpipe but from some distant power plant. When it comes to batteries being recycled, it is still an expensive and ongoing process and most batteries are not being recycled yet.

In spite of this, solutions to make electric cars greener and more eco-friendly, and sustainable are being developed. And although there is room for improvement, we have also seen that electric cars, as they are today, are already, in general, more eco-friendly along their lifecycle than the conventional fossil fuel cars, especially if they are powered with clean electricity. Some countries are already realizing this and that’s why they are fostering the growth of the electric cars market, mostly by giving fiscal benefits that make the cars economically more competitive. In fact, countries like Norway, Germany, or Costa Rica are simultaneously increasing their bet on renewable energies and setting deadlines for the end of conventional cars in their roads.

But in the end, are electric vehicles the solution for our sustainability problem on mobility? We are running to avoid the 2° Celsius temperature increase and prevent the bad consequences of climate change from happening. But is preventing the bad the same as planning for the best?

We have REE for some time but do we truly have enough for the long run? UN forecasts are that 68% of the world population will live in urban areas in 2050, so issues like traffic, parking, and high consumption rates will need to be managed as well.

The truth is that public transportation is a better option than using individual vehicles if we want to lower our carbon footprint, so shouldn’t we be more worried about reinventing it? At the same time, some scientists say that the sharing economy of cars, or even motorbikes or bicycles, will be the next stage in the evolution of mobility, with new business models already being developed. Let’s embrace the change?

Source: https://youmatter.world/en/are-electric-cars-eco-friendly-and-zero-emission-vehicles-26440/

The post Are Electric Cars Really Greener? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.