Things Are Not Cool in California

In California, a historic heat wave has exposed yet again what big idiots the politicians in Sacramento are.

To prevent daily rolling blackouts in Beverly Hills like the ones they have in places like Ghana, Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked us to not use electricity between 4 and 9 p.m.

The idea is to conserve power — and to prop up the electric grid that Newsom and his environmentalist comrades have been dismantling and neglecting for decades with their harmful green energy policies.

Having to conserve electricity is just the latest form of torture California’s Democrat rulers have inflicted on its 40 million citizens.

We already don’t have enough electricity to run our air-conditioners when the temperature soars into triple digits, as it usually does each September.

I can’t imagine what life will be like here in 2035.

That’s when Newsom’s latest bad idea becomes law and all new cars and passenger trucks that are sold in the state from then on will have to be electric.

Right now there are about 30 million registered motor vehicles in California that burn fossil fuels. About 14 million are cars. About 560,000 of those are pure electric vehicles.

Electric cars über alles sounds great.

It sounds like a simple, doable and environmentally virtuous way to save the planet from climate change by killing off our dirty gasoline-powered transportation system.

But in the real world, unless the state allows more nuclear and oil-and-gas-powered power plants to be built, there simply won’t be enough energy in California by 2035 to charge tens of millions of lithium batteries every day.

You remember lithium batteries? Those are those little ones the airlines tell you not to put in your checked luggage because they like to burst into flames now and then.

Well, a Tesla lithium battery weighs about 1,000 pounds — which is why you have to recharge them outside and not in the garage attached to your house.

But let’s forget about the lucky folks who can still afford to own a house and a Tesla in California. What about people who live in an apartment complex with 200 or 300 units?

Where are their Volt charging stations going to be placed? They’ll have to be outside. On the street. Where the homeless camps often are.

Another major problem with electric cars in the real world will occur when freeways are closed for hours by wild fires, as they occasionally are in California.

Or when a blizzard in the mountains shuts down the interstate and strands thousands of motorists with slowly dying batteries.

Or when a hurricane forces a million people to quickly evacuate by electric car from New Orleans.

By 2035, many things will change, of course.

Other foolish states — mostly Blue ones — will also outlaw new gas-powered cars.

But the price of electric vehicles will come down. Charging stations will pop up everywhere. Innovation will happen with batteries that will give electric cars greater range.

And batteries, which today are made from lithium that comes from mines that tear deep dirty holes in the skin of Mother Earth, will be made in the U.S., not China. And maybe they will be replaced with something cleaner and better that doesn’t employ slave labor.

Before he resigns, perhaps Joe Biden might even buy every American with a driver’s license a free charging station or give them a $10,000 down payment to make up for the high cost of electric vehicles.

“Save the planet, America, buy an electric vehicle — whether you like it or not.”

That doesn’t sound very nice to me, so if Gov. Newsom doesn’t mind, I think I’ll pass.

As long as his climate police and the Great Almighty let me, I’m going to continue driving my Ford F-150 Raptor with a smile on my face, love in my heart and the AC cranked up as high as it will go.

The Patriot Post® · Things Are Not Cool in California