Category Archives: Energy and Climate Change

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Electric heat is fine, as far as it goes, but I always want a backup

That rascally rodent, Punxsutawney Phil projected six more weeks of winter, something which should have expired on Monday, but Tuesday sure was cold as well. We know that the groundhog’s projections are scientific, because the Weather Channel sends very scientifically-minded Meteorologist Jen Carfagno to cover it.

Alas! Not only did we not get an early spring, but winter in the eastern half of the United States was colder than usual for much of the season, and The Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Erin McCarthy researched how much it was costing Philly-area residents to heat their homes.

Philly-area residents share how much they paid to keep warm this winter

As the region experienced one of its coldest winters, see how much it cost to heat a Chester County farmhouse, a Fairmount condo with electric, an Ardmore twin, and more with different fuel sources.

by Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, 18 March 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

If you’re getting burned by high heating bills this winter, you’re in good, and equally stressed, company.

U.S. households are expected to pay more than $1,000 on average to heat their homes this winter, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association’s projections, which were updated last month. That’s about $100 more than households paid last year, according to the association, which advocates for federal funding for low-income ratepayers.

Consumers are paying more whether they heat their homes with electricity, natural gas, or heating oil. Residential propane costs are on par with last year.

And customers usually pay more in freezing temperatures, when more energy is required to keep their homes comfortable.

Miss McCarthy gave us several examples, and, as expected, it cost more to stay warm, even though a couple of the respondents said that they kept their thermostats at 65º Fahrenheit.

I confess: our thermostat was set at 72º F!

The propane fireplace that is our secondary heat source.

As I have mentioned previously, our fixer-upper house was all-electric when we moved in, in July of 2017, and that meant our heat was entirely dependent upon our heat pump-based HVAC system. We had some very cold weather in January of 2018, and the heat pump couldn’t quite keep up. During our remodel in 2018, we added propane, because my wife wanted a gas range, and added not only that range, but a propane water heater and fireplace.

During the bitterly cold days, we supplemented the HVAC system with the fireplace. On Sunday, January 25, the electricity went out, though fortunately for only three hours. The propane fireplace works without electricity, so we stayed nice and warm, on a day which was right around freezing.

Other customers were not so lucky, and hundreds were without electricity for a few days, as the weather dumped two inches of snow, followed by 1½ inches of rain, and temperatures plummeting into the teens the following day. Last December 29th, we lost power for 6½ hours.

Our good fortune continued as we did not lose electricity as a major cold front, with some serious winds, came through on Monday of this week, but a lot of Jackson Energy Cooperative’s customers did. That simply drives home the need for an alternative heat source, something the global warming climate change warriors do not want you to have; they want total electric homes, to save Mother Gaia.

I ordered another propane delivery on Tuesday, as the tank got down to 30% of capacity; our previous delivery was on December 15, 2025, so I can’t complain. When the delivery came, it cost me $336.00, not too terrible for propane usage through winter. Once I turn off the propane to the fireplace, a full tank of propane will last us until next winter!

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Welfare for the well-to-do

On Boxing Day of 2023, I noted an article in The Wall Street Journal concerning investors souring on electric vehicle charging companies. In plug in electric vehicles are the wave of the future, why would investors not be moving into, rather than out of, such companies? Note that the original article was from December of 2023, when Joe Biden was securely in the Oval Office, and Donald Trump appeared to be headed for the big house far more probably than the White House.

The Journal included a photo that I am reproducing under Fair Use rules, because it illustrates something I’ve said before. I have seen, at the Wawa at the junction of Interstate 78 and Pennsylvania Route 61, six very new looking Tesla charging stations, none of which were in use, while what looked like twelve gasoline pump alleys were full, with other cars lined up to refuel when the vehicles ahead of them in line pulled out. The Journal photo shows twelve Tesla chargers, with only one in use.

The particular station I’ve mentioned is along busy I-78, and is roughly halfway between Allentown and the state capital of Harrisburg, but the specific area isn’t in a city of any size, making it easy in, easy out.

Plus, it’s at a Wawa, which means great coffee! 🙂 And you’ll need that great coffee if your car’s battery is down too much, and you have to spend an hour recharging.

So now we come to Chester County. The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that electric vehicles are expensive, but that Chester County has the highest median income in the Commonwealth, so it is unsurprising that there are a lot of people there who have purchased such automobiles. But it also seems that the wealthy people there want welfare for the well-to-do:

Chester County has more than 9,000 EVs. Now it wants to build more public electric vehicle charging stations

Through a federal grant program, the county wants to address day-to-day charging needs.

by Brooke Schultz | Saturday, March 7, 2026 | 5:01 AM EST

Chester County, home to one of the largest numbers of electric vehicles in the state, hopes to grow its footprint of public charging stations.

Through the federally funded National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, administered through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the county is looking to build up its community-based public EV charging stations for people who have or want an electric vehicle but do not have a charging station installed at home.

Funding from the program flows directly to municipalities or other applicants for EV chargers. PennDot expects to fund more than 100 projects through the grant.

It builds on an initial federally funded project under the same program, which sought to place charging stations every 50 miles along the major travel corridors to address long drives across the state. Through that program, Chester County projects received $3.2 million.

So, more of our tax dollars going to, as we previously reported, private companies to build for-profit public car charging stations. Those were not even government loans, but outright grants.

Chester County’s proposal would increase the number of public chargers speckled around the county, from workplaces to businesses, giving drivers a place to charge their cars as part of their day-to-day routines.

Chester County, which has both densely packed development and rolling agricultural pockets, saw its rates of EV ownership double between 2022 and 2024, with more than 9,000 EVs registered in the county in the state’s most recent data. The county is behind only Montgomery in overall EV registrations in the southeastern part of the state.

Really? More than 9,000 plug-in electric vehicles? The latest Census Bureau figures, July 1, 20245, show Chester County with a population of 560,745 souls, so 9,000 would be 1.61% of the county’s total population.

The math indicates another problem. Most EV owners recharge their cars overnight in their garages, something most Chester County EV owners would already have. With more than 9,000 EVs registered in the county, and most charged overnight at home, how many actual customers would a public EV charging station actually see in a day there?

“Things are pretty spread out, and with the infrastructure that we have in place right now, other modes of transportation that are carbon-free or less carbon intensive than single-occupancy vehicles are not as viable here as they are in other places that are more dense,” said Rachael Griffith, sustainability director for the Chester County Planning Commission. “If we’re looking at a lower carbon future for our transportation network, EVs are really a great option for that here in our land-use setting. Building out the network of EV chargers is really the way that we incentivize that.”

So, one well-paid government employee wants to direct taxpayer dollars to directly benefit the more well-to-do people of her county. Got it!

I have no objection to people buying plug-in electric vehicles, and no objection to private businesses investing in and building public car chargers for profit, but I have to ask: why should the government, at any level, be subsidizing the building of private businesses? Tesla (TSLA) built thousands of public chargers for their vehicles as part of their sales pitch, and helped make Elon Musk the wealthiest man in the world; as of this publication, Mr Musk has an estimated net worth of $834.8 billion, 3.38 times the net worth of Google founder Larry Page, the second wealthiest man. If it helped make Mr Musk that wealthy, it ought to do the same for other investors.

The policy of sending federal tax dollars to states, to give to private companies to build for-profit EV charging stations was an idea under President Biden, and, as usual, his ideas and policies — or those promulgated by his young staffers — were bad ones. If there is a demand for public EV charging stations, private investors will fill it. If there is insufficient demand for such, then there’s no reason to waste our tax dollars on it.

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How wealthy blue staters fight #ClimateChange

We have had four separate articles in our series “How wealthy New Englanders fight #ClimateChange,” noting how our blue state brethren, the ones who gave so many of their votes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Emhoff in the 2020 election. We take the assumption that those who voted for the Democrats agreed at least in part with the Democrats’ plans on fighting global warming climate change, and looked at how New Englanders with money, at least enough money to afford a major remodeling job featured on the long running PBS series This Old House.

In season 46, the program selected a project house in Ridgewood, New Jersey, not New England, but still among the bluest of blue states. In the 2020 election, Garden State voters gave 2,608,400 votes, 57.33%, to former Vice President Biden and Senator Emhoff, and 1,883,313 votes, only 41.40%, to President Donald trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Thats a landslide margin. Four years later, the election was closer in New Jersey, but Vice President Emhoff and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, received 2,220,713 votes, 51.97%, to 1,968,215, 46.06% for former President Trump and Senator J D Vance. While closer, the outcome in the state was never in doubt.

Bergen County, a sort-of suburb of New York City, was carried by the Democrats, 232,660, 50.68%, to 217,096, 47.29%.

So, how did the wealthy couple from Ridgewood heat their home?

In the basement, Richard Trethewey meets with plumbing and heating expert Kordian Rak, who explains the benefits of the home’s new combination boiler, capable of powering both the radiator heating and water heating systems. Together, they review the new piping system that runs from the basement to the attic and back, including a specialized setup that generates heat beneath the new kitchen floor slab.

It’s a brand new, very efficient boiler, and it’s a natural gas boiler. An original fireplace from the 1920s was retained. The kitchen range is not mentioned, but it is electric, where their older range was gas.

The Garden State does not have any mandate to ban gas heating in new construction, and even if such existed, this was a remodel, not a new build, so a gas heating system would have been grandfathered. But an extensive remodel, in a home in which the old gas-fired boiler had just failed, could have gone with an all-electric heating plan, but did not. If solar panels were to be added to this home, they were never mentioned.

As I write this, it is 17.2º F outside, and we’re in the early stages of the dreaded Snowpocalypse. It started snowing five hours ago, but there’s still only ¾ inch of snow on the ground. Our propane fireplace has occasionally supplemented our heat pump based HVAC system, to keep the house nice and warm. I can see how people in further north than me would want a steadier, more reliable gas heating system, but in very blue state New Jersey?

Well, who knows? Perhaps the homeowners were among the 47.29% of Bergen Countians who cast their votes more sensibly that the majority of residents in the state.

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Ford CEO Jim Farley whines that government isn’t forcing people to buy electric vehicles

I’m starting to worry that I’m poaching too much on William Teach’s themes, with two previous articles in a week about plug in electric vehicles, but I spotted the following story this morning in the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Ford CEO Jim Farley shares ‘shocking’ lesson he learned from Tesla

By Tony Owusu, TheStreet | Thursday, November 12, 2025 | 9:38 AM EST

Earlier this year, Ford CEO Jim Farley had a humbling experience in Asia.

The Detroit automaker has sunk billions into Model e, its electric vehicle division, for decades, with little to show for it.

In June, he told author Walter Isaacson during a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival that he made as many as seven trips to China over the past year.

“It’s the most humbling thing I have ever seen. Seventy percent of all EVs in the world, electric vehicles, are made in China,” Farley said. “They have far superior in-vehicle technology. Huawei and Xiaomi are in every car. You get in, you don’t have to pair your phone. Automatically, your whole digital life is mirrored in the car.”

Uhhh, maybe some of us would not see that as a great feature. A lot of people — I am not one of them — have their financial records on their phones, and pay some things with their too-smart phones. Perhaps some people wouldn’t want their cars to automatically “pair” with their phones, especially if it gives the car, and who knows how many other people, access to their lives and finances. With an estimated net worth of $72.9 million, perhaps Mr Farley is excited by every new gadget out there, and isn’t too terribly worried if someone pays for their Door Dash through Mr Farley’s accounts, but some of us poorer people do have to keep an eye on things.

The story continues to note how the CEO was impressed by superior technology and engineering, saying that Ford has to step up to compete, but then comes the money lines:

While Farley didn’t speak much about the builds of Ford’s Chinese rivals, he did praise the government for promoting the EV industry in a way the U.S. does not.

Farley said that “EVs are exploding in China” because the government there has put its “foot on the economic scale.”

In a Communist command economy, the government can put its “foot on the economic scale.” In a (mostly) free market in the United States, while there was some, thankfully expired, foot pushing in the form of government tax credits for buying electric vehicles and some states mandating that a certain percentage of new cars be EVs by 2030 to 2035, Americans exercising their free choices have not been so compliant. Toyota listened to what consumers wanted, and has focused on hybrids instead.

Perhaps it’s time that Mr Farley dumped his prejudices in favor of electric vehicles, and took a cold, hard look at what a free people taking free choices actually want.

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Amazing what can happen when manufacturers listen to what consumers want Electric cars nope; hybrids yup!

This site noted, just five days ago, that Ford Motor Company was considering doing away with its all-electric F-150 Lightning line of trucks, because the buyer demand for the vehicles just wasn’t there. Now there’s this, from The Wall Street Journal:

Toyota Doubles Down on Hybrids in the U.S. With $14-Billion Battery Push

New North Carolina plant is aimed at selling more hybrid cars and trucks to Americans

By Christopher Otts | Wednesday, November 12, 2025 | 1:28 PM EST

LIBERTY, N.C.—Toyota, a longtime hybrid car and truck promoter, is making one of the industry’s biggest bets on green transportation and opening a $14 billion battery plant here.

For years, Toyota held out against electric vehicles while rivals retrofitted factories and launched models in preparation for an all-electric future. Now that the EV market in the U.S. is vanishing as tax credits expire and sales disappoint, Toyota is doubling down on its hybrid strategy.

The Japanese automaker’s gamble: that American consumers—many of whom won’t touch an EV—will buy increasing numbers of hybrids, which often get up to 50% better mileage than a standard gas-powered car.

Toyota also said it would invest up to $10 billion in U.S. manufacturing over the next five years in addition to the North Carolina site, where it made the largest investment in a U.S. battery-production site.

The batteries that Toyota has begun making at the sprawling plant, located between the cities of Greensboro and Raleigh, are going into hybrids assembled in Kentucky and Alabama. The complex is designed to make batteries for EVs and hybrids, including those that plug in and travel short distances on just electricity before switching to gas.

Our family are familiar with hybrids, as our older daughter had a 2017 Toyota Prius Hybrid, and now drives a 2024 Prius Hybrid. It’s a good, solid vehicle, and she put a ton of miles on her first hybrid, as her civilian job took her on frequent trips throughout the eastern half of the country. She put nearly 200,000 miles on it, before trading it in.

The reason she traded it in was, of course, the battery. It was beginning to fail, and Toyota wanted $8000 to change it. That has always been the problem with the hybrids, and it’s something Toyota, and other hybrid manufacturers, need to address. I’d bet 25€ that all Toyota did was spend less than $2000 to swap out the battery to sell it used.

“For the longest time, folks were criticizing Toyota that they were so slow to the game in the battery-electric business,” said Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive. But the strategy worked, he said. “They really did focus on the traditional hybrids, and they are dominating that whole product segment.”

In other words, Toyota’s leadership were smart enough not to listen to Joe Biden and the Democrats, who were pushing a technology and infrastructure that was simply not ready.

Toyota did listen, however, to consumers, to new automobile buyers, and the company’s actions reflect the free market, and the choices people take in a free country.

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Ford might trash the entire F-150 Lightning electric vehicle model line

It seems that the electric vehicle mandates of the Biden Administration were not greeted with approval by the public, and the public are not choosing to buy the silly things without Federal government bribery. From The Wall Street Journal:

Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck

Once hyped as a ‘smartphone that can tow,’ production of the money-losing EV pickup may be shut down for good

2022 F-150 charging in a lot nicer garage than I have. It shows you just how much money you have to have to buy one of the fool things. Photo from a Ford sales site. Click to enlarge.


By Sharon Terlep | Thursday, November 6, 2025 | 4:06 PM EST

Ford Motor executives are in active discussions about scrapping the electric version of its F-150 pickup, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty.

The Lightning, once described by Ford as a modern Model T for its importance to the company, fell far short of expectations as American truck buyers skipped the electric version of the top-selling truck. Ford has racked up $13 billion in EV losses since 2023.

Overall EV sales, already falling short of expectations, are expected to plummet in the absence of government support. And big, electric pickups and SUVs are the most vulnerable.

If you are blocked by the Journal’s paywall, you can read more about it in The Detroit News.

“The demand is just not there” for F-150 Lightning and other full-size trucks, said Adam Kraushaar, owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group in New Jersey. He sells Ford, GMC, Chevy and other brands. “We don’t order a lot of them because we don’t sell them.”

No final decision has yet been made, according to people familiar with the discussions, but such a move by Ford could be the beginning of the end for big EV trucks.

Using the back of my truck as a workbench. Would I ever do this with a $70,000+ truck?

The decision has been taken, taken already, but not by Ford executives; the decision was taken by the men who buy trucks!

I actually could do OK with an F-150 Lightning. I’m retired, and live and work on a small farm. My average mileage has greatly decreased since retirement, and I have a full shop, with 200 amp separate electric service, in which I could easily mount a vehicle charger. I ought to be the ideal customer, but I would never, ever buy that overpriced piece of [insert vulgar slang for feces here].

I already own an F-150, a 2010, which does just fine. It’s kind of beat up looking, because it’s actually a work truck, and it has some obvious rust thanks to Pennsylvania winters and road salt. Why would I throw away my money on a shiny, new truck at which I would be appalled to throw wood or brush or lumber in the back? The Lightning would be fine for people who haul nothing but groceries and beer, but for men who buy trucks because they use trucks for work, nope, sorry, wrong answer.

Ram truck-maker Stellantis earlier this year called off plans to make an electric version of its full-size pickup. General Motors executives have discussed discontinuing some electric trucks, according to people familiar with the matter. Sales of Tesla’s angular, stainless steel Cybertruck pickup tanked this year. And EV truck-maker Rivian has been cutting jobs to conserve cash.

Here’s the real kicker:

Ford already paused production of its F-150 Lightning—the bestselling electric pickup in the U.S.—last month amid an aluminum shortage. The company is weighing whether to keep that plant idle as it shifts to smaller, more affordable EVs, the people say. The company said it would restart production “at the right time.”

In October, the first month since the end of the federal EV tax credit, Ford’s overall EV sales in the U.S. fell 24% from a year earlier. Ford dealers sold 66,000 gas-powered F-Series pickups, up a tick from a year earlier, and just 1,500 Lightnings, the fewest of any model.

Translation: even the people who did buy them were influenced by the bribes offered by the federal government. Every American taxpayer was being charged a little bit to provide some welfare for the well-to-do, the only people who could afford to buy brand new F-150s.

We’ve seen this before. In April of 2010, when I bought my current vehicle, the Feds were offering the so-called “cash for clunkers” program. The 2000 F-150 I traded in, at, if I remember correctly, 189,000 miles, qualified for the first part, but the new F-150 didn’t for the second. Yeah, I was able to afford to buy a new vehicle, but the new vehicle I needed got less than necessary miles per gallon rating. Cash for clunkers was yet another bit of welfare for the well-to-do, a program which was supposed to aid in recession recovery, but in 2010, the only people who could afford to buy new vehicles didn’t need the government assistance.

So, without a government program bribing people to buy electric vehicles, and without the federal government mandate requiring a certain percentage of new vehicles sold to be EVs, the public are simply not buying EVs at a rate which can sustain production of them.

Remember one thing: the left are pro-choice on exactly one thing!

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Surprise: Fossil Fuels Hating PRC Trying To Keep Fossil Fuels Companies From Leaving

Here’s from October 2024

Why Oil Companies Are Leaving California

On October 16, 2024, the refiner Phillips 66 announced that it will cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025. This announcement came a few days after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law placing additional regulations on refineries.

The closure will affect approximately 600 employees and 300 contractors that currently work at the Los Angeles-area refinery. Politico reported that this closure would also impact 8% of the state’s already tight gasoline production.

Although Phillips 66 spokesperson Al Ortiz denied in an email to Politico that the closure was a response to Newsom’s signing the new law, California’s treatment of its oil industry has undoubtedly been a factor.

The news follows an announcement in August 2024 that Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, will relocate from its California headquarters to Texas. The company, with roots in California dating back to 1879, will transition its headquarters to Houston over the next five years.

Chevron’s move comes as a response to California’s stringent regulations and aggressive climate policies. Chevron’s CEO, Mike Wirth, expressed concerns about the state’s business environment in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

I still maintain the companies should stop selling their products to the state government of the People’s Republic Of California. Stopping operations in the PRC will increase the cost of energy in the state, and moving operations to other states will deny a lot of tax money. Anyhow, now

California trying to keep oil and gas firms from leaving the state

Following 25 years of what oil and gas executives categorize as hostility to the industry, the state is now making a play to keep those companies from leaving.

Concerned with the exodus of oil and gas companies, refinery closures and the expensive price of gasoline in the state, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last week that fast tracks the approval of 2,000 new wells per year over the next 10 years in Kern County, a significant oil-producing region.

But, will the companies actually want to develop those wells, wondering when the other shoe in the PRC will drop, having watched the Democrat operate the past 25 years? Particularly since there are still lawsuits from cities and counties in the PRC? Will they take the chance?

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The urban heat island effect drives climate change

Stephanie Abrams explains urban heat island effect on The Weather Channel. Screen capture by D R Pico on June 26, 2025.

My good friend William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove snarked this morning that it was “Your Fault: ‘Climate Change’ Made Current Raleigh Heat Wave More Likely,” which amused me greatly. I know, I know, it’s just shocking, shocking! that it got hot in a major urban area in the South, in the summer, but Mr Teach mocked WRAL telling people how horrible the heat was, and that it was all the fault of global warming climate change.

As it happens, I have my own weather station, and I’m OCD enough to keep an eye on it. And what I’ve noticed is that while yes, it got into the nineties at the farm, it was still a few degrees less than the forecasts.

It was 69.4º F at 7:00 this morning, lower than the forecast of 72º for that time. Continue reading →

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Cutting off their noses to spite Elon Musk’s face

My good friend William Teach quoted a global warming climate quack:

Fortunately, lawsuits are moving forward in states from Hawaii and Montana to New York and Vermont to hold corporate actors accountable, seeking millions or billions of dollars to pay for damages caused by climate change. These cases include a Feb. 24 lawsuit filed by farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for deleting vital climate data from their website.

It’s time for every corporate polluter to be held accountable in court. If federal officials are derelict in their duty to protect us, then governors, legislators, pressure groups and citizens must take up the slack. The planet won’t survive four more years of climate-denying policies.

And if those lawsuits are won? It means that ordinary Americans will be paying far higher prices, because corporations simply pass on all costs of doing business. They have to, or they quickly go broke. Continue reading →