Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Electric Buses? How Will You Charge Them Up Under NJ Environmentalists’ Dark Green Anti-Energy Agenda?


Reporting for NJ.com, Larry Higgs expounds on the virtues of electric busses as opposed to diesel-powered ones, now that the first ones have arrived in New Jersey. In Electric buses are in N.J., and more are coming. We tried them, Higgs reports:

In the race to be the greenest, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has put the first electric buses on the road in New Jersey. It purchased 18 Proterra electric buses to use in shuttle service at its three major airports. The first buses went in service at Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday, running on the airport’s 24/7 shuttle. [sic]

They seem pretty cool. I posted these comments:

Great idea. Seriously. These buses look like technological marvels. It certainly is progressive to replace fossil fuel transportation with electric where feasible. This moves power generation from individual vehicles to central power plants, where air pollution can much more easily be controlled and mitigated.

But how will you keep all these batteries charged, on demand? Keeping these electricity-guzzling behemoths going will need plenty of not just clean but reliable electricity-generating capacity. So-called “renewable energy” notwithstanding, the key word is reliable. Where will that clean, reliable electricity-generating capacity come from if the “Greens” win their war against natural gas pipelines and nat-gas generating plants and nuclear power?  

Of course, the Greens are not interested in progress. Fundamentally, they are ideologically opposed to industrial progress, as such. On principle, “green” means neo-primitive regression to pre-industrial living--or as close to it as is politically feasible. Their agenda is to make human living harder, not cleaner. They seek to “protect the Earth,” not human flourishing and well-being. It is a dark agenda.

People have been trying forever to simultaneously have their cake and eat it. It can’t be done. If “the race to be the greenest” means transitioning to electric transportation, then it also must mean the impediments to expanded reliable electricity generation must be eased, not hampered. This means defeating the Dark Greens’ anti-reliable energy agenda.

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2 comments:

Mike Kevitt said...

I remember during the mid-20th' century the in bigger mid-western cities used electric buses. But they didn't run on batteries or 3rd. rails. They ran on power from overhead cables strung out over the bus routes Why not now? Why were they discontinued?

principled perspectives said...

Good question.