Tag Archives: #ClimateChange

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The huge disconnect between the government and the governed Wealthy Justin Trudeau is so worried about #ClimateChange that he'd freeze Canadians

Our great neighbor to the north, the second largest country in the world by area, has had what we Americans would consider a very liberal government. Canadians have restrictions on speech imposed upon them, and all sorts of laws and regulations of which American ‘progressives’ can only dream about.

One of the liberal policies imposed on Canadians by their government is a ‘carbon’ tax to discourage fossil fuel consumption. But, as the term neighbor to the north implies, the climate is somewhat cooler up there, and downright cold in the winter. From the Toronto Sun:

Carbon tax punishes Canadians for staying warm

Kris Sims| March 4, 2021

Cold enough for ya?

All of Canada’s capitals were below the freezing mark during the latest cold snap.

Even Victoria had its ploughs pressed into service as snow smothered the cherry blossoms. Edmonton was at -34 C (-29º F), Regina dipped to -39 C (-38º F), and call-the-army Toronto hit -13 C (9º F). The Maritimes shivered through -14 C (7º F) and something called “ice fog.”

Without natural gas, propane and furnace oil, millions of Canadians would have been freezing in the dark.

Those silly Canucks use the metric system; conversions to Fahrenheit in the article by me.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is jacking up the carbon tax over the next nine years which will punish Canadians for the grave sin of wanting to stay warm.

As one of the writers of the federal carbon tax legislation recently explained on the TV show Counterpoint, Trudeau’s carbon tax is meant to “punish the poor behaviour of using fossil fuels.”

At $30/tonne, natural gas currently carries a federal carbon tax punishment of 5.8 cents per cubic metre, the tax on propane is 4.6 cents per litre and furnace oil is taxed at 8 cents per litre.

What will life be like when Trudeau increases the carbon tax to $170 per ton?

The article continues to tell people what life will be like once that carbon tax has been increased, and I’ll skip over that part, because quoting the whole thing would be copyright infringement, but you can follow the link to see the numbers for yourself.

Those counting on carbon tax rebates to magically put more money back in their pockets should take heed of the British Columbia carbon tax example on which the federal program was based. Rebates in B.C. evaporate when a two person working family hits an income $59,000 per year, far below the provincial average.

The carbon tax advocates in the United States have pushed rebates for the poor, but obvious questions arise:

  • What documentation and filings will be required to get such rebates; and
  • How frequently will such rebates be paid

Without documentation, how will the government know to whom and how much the rebates should be sent? Would the government impose some sort of quarterly tax filings on lower-income people?

If the rebates are paid quarterly, how much good does that do for people living paycheck-to-paycheck?

Carbon tax cheerleaders, typically the well insulated and academic political set, say Canadians should simply go electric instead of using oil, natural gas and propane to stay warm. The fact is electric heat is not affordable for many households and our power grids don’t have the juice to both heat our homes and charge our electric vehicles.

Electric systems can fail. In January of 2018, an ice storm that the Weather Channel called Winter Storm Hunter knocked out sparktricity to our humble abode. Being January, it was rather cold out, as you might expect.[1]As much as the Weather Channel tried, the idea of naming winter storms never caught on beyond their network

The power was out for 4½ days. My wife went to stay with our daughters, in Lexington, but I had to stay at home, to take care of the critters. By the last day, it was down to 38º F — that’s 3 C to the Canadians! — inside the house.

Well, never again, we said, and as part of our remodeling, we had propane installed into our previously all-electric house. Mrs Pico wanted a gas range, and we went ahead and added a gas hot water heater and propane fireplace.

Well, we just got hit by historic flooding, and while the electricity never went out, the flooding destroyed our electric HVAC system; it reached into the crawlspace, but not into the house itself. I tied the propane tank to a nearby tree, so that if it floated, at least it couldn’t float away! I had to turn off the propane at the tank at that point.[2]We were very lucky; about three more inches, and the record flood waters would have reached the wooden sills and floor joists

Well, it did float, and turned upside down. It was only through the goodness of the Lord that the supply line didn’t snap. As the flood waters receded, I was finally able to muscle the tank back upright, though sitting on the ground rather than the concrete blocks on which it originally sat. I checked the gas line, and tested it, and it was OK. Now, that propane fireplace is heating our house again. It was 30º F outside this morning, but the house is warm. We have an HVAC contractor coming by on Monday to give us an estimate, because, being completely inundated by muddy flood waters, the system is almost certainly destroyed. The point is simple: if we didn’t have the propane backup, we’d have no heat for perhaps weeks!

We live in Kentucky, and the normal highs and lows for this time of year are 50º and 32º F. What are they in Calgary or Whitehorse or Iqaluit?

Yes, I did spend one winter in Maine when I was a third grader, but that’s a long-ago, remote experience. Nevertheless, I seem to have a greater appreciation for what poorer Canadians, what people living outside of Ottawa and Toronto and Montreal have to go through in their lives than the Right Honourable Mr Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. I do not know how an American who has never set foot in Canada can understand more about Canadians than a native son, but apparently I do.

Perhaps if the Prime Minister were to leave Ottawa and live out in the boondocks of Saskatchewan, where some off-gridders have to use propane to power their refrigerators, he might learn something about his own countrymen.

References

References
↑1 As much as the Weather Channel tried, the idea of naming winter storms never caught on beyond their network
↑2 We were very lucky; about three more inches, and the record flood waters would have reached the wooden sills and floor joists
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You did know that the #ClimateChange activists would be coming for your lifestyle, too, right?

Joanna Gaines’ kitchen set, with its $60,000 range.

My daughters — when they’re here — and my wife tend to watch cooking shows like The Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, and Giada in Italy, though, admittedly, Giada in Italy is watched as much for the Italian scenery as anything else. Joanna Gaines has just started her own cooking show, Magnolia Table, and she has the ultimate, a La Cornue Chateau range, a hand-crafted gas appliance that starts at $60,300, not including shipping and delivery. It’s simply the most expensive version of what it seems that every cooking show has, and every cook wants: a gas stove.

Molly Yeh in her set kitchen; note the old style electric range.

The notable exception is Molly Yeh’s Girl Meets Farm, where the hostess uses, unexpectedly, not only an electric range, but an older style one, with the spiral heating elements.

While I don’t spend an inordinate time in front of the boob tube, I do like to watch the various house hunting shows like Living Alaska, Restoring Galveston, and Building of the Grid. And one frequently noted request of the prospective homeowners is a gas range. Gas is on instantly, and is much more easily adjustable.

But that’s not what the global warming climate change activists think you should have . . . or be allowed to have! From The Washington Post:

The battle over climate change is boiling over on the home front

Municipalities want new buildings to go all electric, spurning gas-fired stoves and heating systems. The gas industry disagrees

By Steven Mufson | February 23, 2021 | 7:00 AM EST

A new front has opened in the battle over climate change: The kitchen.

Cities and towns across the country are rewriting local building codes so that new homes and offices would be blocked from using natural gas, a fossil fuel that when burned emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. New laws would force builders to install heat pumps instead of gas furnaces and electric kitchen stoves instead of gas burners.

When we moved to our retirement fixer-upper in July of 2017, it was total electric. In January of 2018, a snow and ice storm hit, and knocked out the electricity. Since we’re out in the country, at pretty much the far end of Jackson Electric Cooperative’s service area, we’re among the last people to get power back, and it took 4½ days. My wife went to Lexington, and stayed at our daughter’s apartment, but I had to stay here, to care for the critters, and the plumbing.
It got down to 38º F in the house.

Gas fireplace in my computer room/den.

As I said, our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and it certainly isn’t done yet, but we decided that we would have gas in the remodel, because Mrs Pico wanted a gas range. Thus we now have a new gas (propane) range, water heater and the fireplace installed. If we lose power again, we’ll still be able to keep the house warm, cook and take showers.

Without that fossil fuel, the place would become a not-very-much-fun place in the winter when the electricity goes out.

Local leaders say reducing the carbon and methane pollution associated with buildings, the source of 12.3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, is the only way they can meet their 2050 zero-emission goals to curb climate change.

But the American Gas Association, a trade group, and its members are campaigning in statehouses across the country to prohibit the new local ordinances. Four states last year adopted such laws, and this year similar legislation has been introduced in 12 more.

“Logically the natural gas industry does not want to see its business end, so it’s doing what it can to keep natural gas in the utility grid mix,” said Marta Schantz, senior vice president of the Urban Land Institute’s Center for Building Performance. “But long term, if cities are serious about their climate goals, electric buildings are inevitable.”

What people want is what the climate control activists do not want people to have.

Of course, the timing of this article is interesting, considering the electricity outages due to the severe cold snap in the Lone Star State. The problems have been serious there, in part because of Texas’ large population, and because the state is simply not used to temperatures near 0º Fahrenheit. That the state has solidly Republican leadership has simply added to the impetus of the credentialed media to place blame.

But here in the Bluegrass State, we’ve had similar problems, just ones which haven’t gotten as much national media attention. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

KY couple without electricity after ice, snow storm apparently froze to death
By Bill Estep | February 22, 2021 | 5:04 PM EST

A couple found dead in Laurel County Sunday apparently froze to death, Sheriff John Root said in a news release.

Autopsies conducted Monday on James Duff, 62, and his wife Dinah Duff, 63, of Laurel County determined their apparent cause of death as hypothermia, according to the release.

A person who knew the couple found them Sunday about 10:30 a.m. and called police. Officers from the sheriff’s office responded.

James Duff was lying in the yard of his home on Pine Hill — Brock Road, about five miles east of London. Dinah Duff was inside the house, according to a news release.

The house had no electricity for some period before the couple was found because of damage to power lines from ice and snow that hit the area earlier in the week, said Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, spokesman for Root’s office.

Tens of thousands of people in Kentucky lost power recently after trees and limbs weighted by ice fell and knocked down lines.

Mr and Mrs Duff had apparently attempted to build a fire in their fireplace, but the home had no secondary heating source. The article does not tell us what the primary heat source for the house was, but it was apparently dependent upon electricity to run.

Our house in Jim Thorpe.

On Christmas Day of 2002, our first in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, the town received 14″ of heavy, wet snow in the beautiful white Christmas about which Bing Crosby so wonderfully sang. It also knocked out the power at 11:30 AM.

Our house in Jim Thorpe had steam radiators powered by a heating oil boiler, but the boiler required electricity to start and run. By the time the sparktricity came back on, at about 6:00 PM on the 26th, it was around 50º F inside.

Because the house did have a chimney for a wood stove installed by the previous owner, we later bought a wood stove, but never went through another prolonged power outage there again.

An anecdote? Perhaps, though, despite the protests of some, the plural of anecdote really is data! That episode pointed out to me that Mr and Mrs Duff could have had a primary heating source that wasn’t electric, but it still depended upon electricity to run.

A cheery fire in our wood stove in Jim Thorpe, December 18, 2016.

As it happens, we get our electricity from Jackson Energy as do many other people in eastern Kentucky, but we’ve been fortunate during the recent series of ice and snow storms: other than a couple of flickers, our electricity stayed on, and our house was nice and warm. My good blogging friend William Teach cross-posted some of his articles here, upon my request, because I didn’t know beforehand whether we would lose power. Being at the far western end of Jackson’s service area — just a couple miles up the road, power comes from Kentucky Utilities — when the power does go out here, it can stay out for days.

But, as noted above, because we have a secondary heat source of which the Patricians disapprove, if it had gone out, we wouldn’t have suffered Mr and Mrs Duff’s fate.

The socialist nature of the argument comes from the Post article originally cited:

“The average American likes choice and doesn’t want to be told what kind of fuel to use in their homes,” said Karen Harbert, chief executive of the American Gas Association. “Municipalities cannot take away that choice.”

“The natural gas industry frames it as a choice issue; we frame it as a choice issue,” said Johanna Neumann, a senior director at Environment America, an environmental group. “The industry frames it as a choice for people who want to use natural gas. We see it as a choice for a community to decide its energy future.”

One group want to leave your choices up to you; the other want to have the “community” dictate your “choice” to you. Of course, for the longest time the left have been pro-choice on exactly one thing.

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We’re from the Government and we know better than you what you should drive If you live in a Philadelphia row house, just where will you charge your electric car?

Oh, goody! Pennsylvania is about to waste more money . . . again! From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pa. to install electric vehicle chargers in Philly, Ridley Twp., and Quakertown

The Pennsylvania DEP issued nearly $1 million in grants to install fast chargers on West Oregon Ave. in Philadelphia, as well as locations in Ridley Township and Quakertown.

by Frank Kummer | February 19, 2021

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced nearly $1 million in grants to install fast chargers on West Oregon Avenue in Philadelphia, as well as locations in Ridley Township, Delaware County; and Quakertown, Bucks County, as part of a larger effort to expand electric vehicle use statewide.

Overall, the $936,000 will pay for 12 fast chargers installed in those locations, as well as four in Allegheny County.

“DEP is committed to supporting this choice by increasing public knowledge of electric vehicles, making it easier for consumers to find electric models, and helping to expand charging infrastructure,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell.

Funding for the project comes from the commonwealth’s share of the national settlement with Volkswagen for cheating on emissions tests.

The author, Frank Kummer, “cover(s) local environmental issues, from the Poconos to the New Jersey Shore.”  His article provides us with the statistics about where the Pennsylvania DEP plans on building the fast chargers:

DEP awarded $750,000 for the three local projects:

  • $250,000 for six fast chargers to be installed by EVgo, the largest public fast-charging network for electric vehicles, at Cedar Realty Trust in Quartermaster Plaza at 2300 West Oregon Ave. in Philadelphia, a site that’s located within an environmental justice community — defined as an area with certain socioeconomic challenges — and within a half-mile of I-76.
  • $250,000 for four fast chargers to be installed by EVgo at Albertsons Acme Market at 124 Morton Ave. in Ridley Township. The location is within two miles of I-95 and I-476.
  • $186,619 for two fast chargers to be installed by EV Build in a mall parking lot at 100 N.W. End Boulevard in Quakertown. The project is located along high-traffic Route 309.

Officials said the chargers will be located in community hubs to serve local residents of single homes and apartments. They are part of a network the DEP and PennDOT hope to build to help drivers traveling longer distances from their homes. The goal is to have chargers every 50 miles along highways and no more than five miles from the road. Interstates 76, 95, 376, and 476 are key.

I will admit to shaking my head at the notion of investing in fast charging stations in an “area with certain socioeconomic challenges,” given that such would be an area which will see a slower adoption of plug-in electric vehicles, because the residents are less able to pay for them. That was a point which Mr Kummer did not mention.

But, with all of the statistics and documentary hyperlinks Mr Kummer included, he omitted the one that most people don’t know about: how long it takes to charge your plug-in electric vehicle! While I cannot read Mr Kummer’s mind, I know why I wouldn’t mention that in an article of the nature of the one he wrote: because it would totally turn off people to the idea of plug-in electrics!

How long does it take to charge an electric car?

Charging an electric car can take a matter of minutes or days, depending on what method you use. Here, we take a look at the ins and outs of the process…

by Martin Saarinen | 28 January 2021

The time it takes to charge an electric car can be as little as 30 minutes or more than 12 hours. This depends on the size of the battery and the speed of the charging point.

  • A typical electric car (60kWh battery) takes just under 8 hours to charge from empty-to-full with a 7kW charging point.
  • Most drivers top up charge rather than waiting for their battery to recharge from empty-to-full.
  • For many electric cars, you can add up to 100 miles of range in ~35 minutes with a 50kW rapid charger.
  • The bigger your car’s battery and the slower the charging point, the longer it takes to charge from empty to full.

Tip: Charging an electric car is similar to charging a mobile phone; you top it up during the day if you need to and give it a full charge at home overnight.

Emphases in the original.

The first bullet point is for an at-home charging unit; the third is for a “fast charging station,” such as the type mentioned in Mr Kummer’s article.

Most people don’t know how long it takes to charge an electric vehicle.

Think about that: if you can add roughly 100 miles of driving range in about 35 minutes, but your gasoline-powered car gets 300 miles of range on a single tank of fuel, the article is saying that to match your gasoline powered vehicle’s one-tank range would require roughly 105 minutes at the “fast charging station.”[1]The 36 gallon tank on my 2010 Ford F-150 gives me about 625 miles of range!

Do you want to replace 5 to 10 minutes at the gas station with one hour and 45 minutes?

Philadelphia has more row houses than any other city.

The article suggests “topping off” during the day, and fully charging overnight at home. That’s a great idea . . . if you have a garage or secure, dedicated parking space at home where you can install an at-home charger. If you don’t, that means complete dependence on public charging stations. If you live in a Philadelphia row house, something fairly common — though often in poorer shape than the ones pictured at the left — in what Mr Kummer described as “an environmental justice community, defined as an area with certain socioeconomic challenges,” just where are you going to put that at home charging unit? Are you going to be running an electric cable out your basement window to your car parked on the street?

Think about that. You might be able to get away with just the 35-minute 100 mile range topping off, but it will also mean stopping at the charging station thrice as often as you have to pump gasoline now.

Car and Driver has a good article on the basics of charging up your vehicle. When using a fast charging station, the article notes that:

A certifiably lethal current of DC power is pumped into the car’s battery, and miles of range are added in short order. Tesla’s V3 superchargers pump out up to 250 kW, and Electrify America’s automotive defibrillators fire out up to 350 kW of heart-stopping power.

“Certifiably lethal”, huh? Yeah, that’s what I want to see, 17-year-olds using 240 volt three-phase power cables!

In the rain and the snow of the City of Brotherly Love.

Am I the only one who sees this as maybe not the greatest idea ever?

If you have a good garage with sufficient electric service, an electric car might not be that bad an idea for you, depending upon your other circumstances. In our current home, out in the country, with a garage with separate electric service, we are as well-situated as anyone to replace one car with a plug-in electric, as long as I can keep my F-150 powered by gasoline. But in our previous home? It would not have worked. If you live in rental property, it might not work, and I can easily see a landlord increasing the rent by $50 or $100 a month for the installation of an vehicle charging station if he did allow it.

The climate change activists, whose numbers now, sadly, include the President of the United States, have no conception of what regular people live like, and how much they are trying to impose on people. But you will do what you are told, won’t you?

References

References
↑1 The 36 gallon tank on my 2010 Ford F-150 gives me about 625 miles of range!
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About that getting rid of fossil fuels?

As Joltin’ Joe Biden and the rest of the #ClimateChange alarmists want you to end your dependency on fossil fuels, perhaps this story from the Austin American-Statesman ought to be in the backs of your minds:

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says

Brandon Mulder | Austin American-Statesman | February 14, 2021 | 4:30 PM CST | Updated: February 15, 2021 | 10:11 AM CST

Frozen wind turbine in Texas.

Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.

Fortunately for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electric grid, the storm’s gusty winds are spinning the state’s unfrozen coastal turbines at a higher rate than expected, helping to offset some of the power generation losses because of the icy conditions

“Some of,” I note. There’s more at the original.

The story continues to tell us that wind generated sparktricity was 23% of the Lone Star State’s generation capacity, but it has to be asked: if the Climate Change policies that President Biden wants to put in place, to transition us to 100% ‘renewable’ carbon-free sources were actually in place, in this miserable February with it’s strong Arctic air mass having borne down upon the Midwest plains states, just how many people would be shivering in their homes right now?

Gas fireplace in my computer room/den.

When we moved to our retirement fixer-upper in July of 2017, it was total electric. In January of 2018, a snow and ice storm hit, and knocked out the electricity. Since we’re out in the country, at pretty much the far end of Jackson Electric Cooperative’s service area, we’re among the last people to get power back, and it took 4½ days. My wife went to Lexington, and stayed at our daughter’s apartment, but I had to stay here, to care for the critters, and the plumbing.

It got down to 38º F in the house.

As I said, our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and it certainly isn’t done yet, but we decided that we would have gas in the remodel, because Mrs Pico wanted a gas range. Thus we now have a new gas (propane) range, water heater and the fireplace installed. If we lose power again, we’ll still be able to keep the house warm, cook and take showers.

Without that fossil fuel, the place would become a not-very-much-fun place in the winter when the electricity goes out.

.

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Thank the Lord for fossil fuels!

During our first winter back in the Bluegrass State, we had only electric heat. When what the Weather Channel called Winter Storm Hunter hit, we lost sparktricity . . . for 4½ days. My wife went to stay with our daughter, in Lexington, but I had to stay on the farm to take care of the critters.

The coldest it got in the house was 38º F!

But it sure wasn’t pleasant. While the water was still on, there was no hot water. There was just enough warm water that first morning to take a quick, sort-of OK shower, but that was it.

Our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and the kitchen was the first thing to be redone. Mrs Pico wanted a gas range, and that was planned all along. We knew our electric water heater was near the end of its service life, so we planned on replacing that with gas as well. Then, remembering the unheated house, we decided to add a gas fireplace as well. The fan won’t work without electricity, and while the range top will work, the oven will not.

So, will we lose power again?

It’s a little hard to see the county lines, in the red area, but that’s where we are, kind of in between the Berea and Jackson city names.

At any rate, what my, sadly, late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal is telling me that we’re due for another ice storm. The forecast is a bit iffy: we could get snow as well as freezing rain, probably light tomorrow morning but getting worst Wednesday afternoon.

Alas! Mrs Pico has to work Thursday and Friday, and as a hospital nurse there’s no ‘work from home’ for her. My F-150 does have four-wheel drive, but four-wheel drive works far better in snow than it does on ice; nothing works well on ice. The county has pretreated the road, and while we live in relatively flat river-bottom farmland, there are a couple of not-nice places on the way to the hospital.

At any rate, I have asked William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove to watch this site, in case I’m out of communication for a few days.

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Out of juice What happens when you can't find a working charging station for your plug in electric vehicle?

My good blogging friend, William Teach, has pinch hit for me in the past, and while I haven’t needed his help since I was forced to reconstitute this site, he just published one I have to steal reference:

Who’s Up For A 130 Mile Trip In An Electric Car That Takes 9 Hours?

By William Teach | November 28, 2020 | 3:00 PM EST

The climate cultists at the UK Guardian try to put a rosy face on this, but, ‘taint working

‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

Miles Brignall | Saturday, 28 November 2020 | 3.30 EST

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

While the couple seem to have been “incredibly unlucky”, according to the president of the AA, Edmund King, their case highlights some of the problems that need ironing out before electric car owners can rely on the UK’s charging infrastructure.

The couple, who love their new fully electric Porsche Taycan 4S, which has a range of about 250 miles, contacted the Guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home. Their journey would have taken two and a half hours in a conventional car, they say.

In a portion that Mr Teach did not quote, the couple stated that they left Bournemouth on the return trio with 45 miles of charge remaining, so they must have burned through some electrons while in Bournemouth. Perhaps electric car owners need to be a little bit more conservative in planning their travels.[1]As I have pointed out previously, electric cars have far lower ranges when the weather is cold.

Must be nice. That car starts at $185,000. See, these very rich people don’t worry about giving up fossil fuels like the peons

“Electric vehicle consumers want more interoperability, more chargers, greater reliability and a contactless experience. To really help the revolution get to full power before 2030 we need a concerted effort from local authorities to take up the charging point grants – only one in six do, according to AA research, and for those premises providing chargers to ensure they work. Driving an electric vehicle is great fun and can save you money and save emissions. Let’s make sure the future network can help save range anxiety,” he says.

See, we need Government to really build all these charging stations and stuff, so the rich folks aren’t inconvenienced with their expensive toys

The Guardian’s story said that the Taycan Turbo 4S has a range of about 250 miles, but that’s significantly higher than EPA ratings, which state the range to be 192 to 201 miles. The Taycan 4s (not the Turbo 4S), with the upgraded Performance Battery Plus, has a slightly longer listed range of 203 miles, and is actually less expensive, at $103,800 MSRP. Note that The Guardian article wasn’t really very specific about exactly which model the Barneses owned.

A parishioner at my church has a plug in Chevy Dolt Bolt. Given that there are no electric car charging stations in our rural county, he has to have a charging station at his home. If I had a plug in electric, I do have an easy and convenient place in which I could install a 50 amp, 240 volt charging station, something within my skill set, but many, and perhaps most, people do not have a dedicated and secure garage in which they could install such a charger. And, of course, if they don’t have the knowledge and the skills and the tools to install one themselves, they’d have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to a sparktrician to do it for them.

The Guardian article noted that there are more than 11,600 public charging sites in the United Kingdom, but, as the Barneses found out, far too many of them are out-of-service at times, and it can take a long, long time to recharge the vehicle. On Black Friday of 2019, Tesla drivers in the Pyrite State found themselves stuck in hours-long lines trying to recharge.

Plug in electric vehicles might be OK for tooling around town, but if you are like most Americans and at least occasionally take longer trips in your automobile, you had better have a second, gasoline powered vehicle. The Barneses have learned that the hard way.
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