Best Energy Picks - October 12, 2024

Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.

Oct 12, 2024

This week’s best energy picks:

EV Fires One of the Big Risks of Hurricane Flooding — And, for More Insights on Lithium Batteries — And, for Still Further Insights on BEVs — It Turns Out the Biggest Enemy of Green Energy Is…Green Energy — and much more.

EV Fires One of the Big Risks of Hurricane Flooding

How many times does this lesson need to be learned and how much longer can the EV battery problem be ignored by those pushing EVs?

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor reminded residents in a press conference early Wednesday that city garages were left open and urged electric vehicle owners in particular to take advantage of the upper floors in garages to avoid flood and fire risk.
“You can put your electric vehicles up high,” Castor said in the press conference. “Make sure you are elevating all those electric batteries and electric items as well because those batteries—once they start on fire—they cannot be extinguished.”
She added that some houses were lost during Hurricane Helene two weeks ago to fires sparked by saltwater flooding electric vehicles.
Prior to that storm, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also warned residents of the risk of fire from electric vehicles and flood waters, as contact with saltwater can short-circuit the batteries, causing a chain reaction known as thermal runaway in which heat energy is released from the battery to cause a fire.

The City of Tampa mobility department noted all parking fees were removed in anticipation of Hurricane Milton to encourage more EV users to take advantage of above-ground parking.
“During Hurricane Helene, at least two house fires were caused by electric vehicle batteries that came in contact with floodwater,” the city added in a notice to residents on Wednesday.
Tampa’s warning to its residents is an example of broader concerns of EV-related flood and fire risk, as Florida CFO and State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis on Monday called on EV manufacturers to take steps to protect lives during Hurricane Milton.
“The CFO’s Division of State Fire Marshal has confirmed 48 lithium-ion battery fires related to storm surge from Hurricane Helene, with 11 of those fires associated with EVs,” the agency said in a fire safety alert to Florida residents. “Consumer items containing lithium-ion batteries include cars, scooters, hover boards, golf carts or children’s toys. The CFO also called on EV manufacturers to be pro-active by alerting consumers to place their EVs to higher ground.” …
“As I’ve stated before, these compromised vehicles and devices are ticking time bombs, and my office will continue to coordinate with federal, state, and local officials to ensure consumers and first responders are aware of these fire hazards following Hurricane Milton,” Patronis added. “After the storm, if you do have an EV that has been flooded by saltwater and it remains in your garage or near your home, please remove it immediately to a safe location so that you can worry about fixing your home, instead of rebuilding it due to fire.” …
Similar issues came to light after Hurricane Ian in 2022, when Patronis said many EVs were disabled.
“As those batteries corrode, fires start,” he said at the time. “That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale.”

Every day new evidence arises that EVs make no sense for most consumers, yet Western governments keep mandating them directly or indirectly. Sad.

Hat Tip: D.S.

And, for More Insights on Lithium Batteries…

Check this out:

Pretty amazing, huh? Now, imagine being in an EV car crash…

Hat Tip: R.N.

Finally, for Some Further Insights on the Inadequacies of BEVs…

A material or device releases energy in 4 typical ways: nuclear, chemical, electrochemical and electrical. Energy dense materials are the most useful, because they contain more energy stored in a given mass (Kg) and thus can do more potential work than lower energy density materials. To illustrate the relative energy densities of typical combustible materials in comparison to a lithium battery, we present the graph below.

**Above: the energy density of common oxidizable or combustible materials in comparison to a lithium battery device. Source: The Geography of Transport Systems.**

Using the graph above, we can compare and contrast a car burning gasoline (ICE) vs. an electric vehicle (EV) powered by a lithium battery. Gasoline has an energy density of about 45 MJ/Kg vs. an EV lithium battery that has only about 0.5-1 MJ/kg. Because the energy density of a lithium battery is so low, an EV is commonly much heavier than an ICE vehicle, sometimes by up to 1000 lbs or more, in order to get any useful range.
Importantly, and also in contrast to EVs, ICE powered vehicles carry a high energy density fuel onboard, which is ultimately much more efficient in comparison to the long chain of events and losses realized in charging an EV – that is, starting with electrons generated at a remote power plant, typically fueled by coal, followed by transmission down lossy power lines to a charger, and then the charging of the battery in-place.
We further note that charging an EV battery requires power, as charging is a non-spontaneous uphill process. Ultimately, despite EVs having 90 % efficient electric motors, modern ICE vehicles are still about 30 % more efficient than EVs, as we have previously reported in EViscerated: ICE Vehicles are More Efficient than EVs.

Facts are stubborn things, aren’t they?

Hat Tip: K.L. / T.C.

Rent Seeking Grifters Are the Major Threat to the Grid

Our public utilities are increasingly captured by special interests:

Public utility regulators, like other governmental entities, are susceptible to rent-seeking activities by advocates of different agendas to achieve self-serving interests at the expense of utility customers. The electricity industry in particular has several features that make it highly visible and susceptible to political influence and interest-group lobbying. These features include its substantial environmental footprint, its provision of an essential service, and the high social cost from service interruptions.
As pressures have intensified for new and greater social investments, driven largely by politics and other outside forces, utility regulators have had to wrestle more with economic inefficiencies inherent in cost socialization and subsidies.
Subsidies are especially socially injurious and are typically the product of increased politicization. Subsidies for clean energy projects are unfair to funding parties, economically inefficient because they convey false price signals, and discriminatory to competing energy sources such as natural gas.

**Subsidies and More Subsidies: "Roll of Cash" by 401(K) 2013 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.**

One common peculiar practice is for electric utilities—as well as gas utilities—to pursue energy efficiency initiatives that encourage customers via subsidies to use less of their service as well as to subsidize competitors, such as roof-top solar. Overall, subsidies almost always fail a cost-benefit test from a societal perspective.
Because of these developments, regulatory failures and capture have grown. Historically, capture referred to undue influence by utilities on public policy at the expense of utilities’ customers and the public interest. More recently, capture has involved new stakeholders, but has had the same effect of harming utility customers and the public interest. This modern-day capture has sprung from the promotion of certain interests by utilities which are protected against financial concerns.
The consequence, not surprisingly, is that utility customers are “taxed” with surcharges and “innovative rate mechanisms,” assuring that utilities recover the costs of investments made on behalf of the general public, rather than just utility customers. Think of subsidies to clean technologies that reduce carbon emissions, which benefit the whole world. One must ask: Why should utility customers alone pay for those investments?
Regulators should, therefore, examine whether utilities’ primary customers are on the short end of the stick. Are customers funding the advancement of social objectives through inflated electricity and natural gas rates and lower service reliability without compensatory benefits?
These actions are likely to have a regressive effect by disproportionally burdening lower-income households. In many instances, the beneficiaries of these subsidies mostly include high-income households while the payers are primarily households of lower incomes. Think of subsidies funded by utility customers for advancing roof-top solar, energy efficiency, electric heat pumps, and electric vehicles.