"Sunday's Energy Absurdity: Unelected CA Regulators Carry Green Fantasy Thinking to the Next Level".
...they [the California Air Resource Board] decided that mandating not-ready-for-primetime electric tech for cars and heavy trucks on insanely unrealistic deadlines is not going far enough into fantasyland, and decided to approve a resolution to do the same in the realm of heavy freight locomotives.
I think California is ultimately shooting for something like this...
Gov't can't create wealth but it sure can destroy it.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a job for the Interstate Commerce clause, too bad the penumbras and emanations have changed its meaning.
I love the reporting that the only fully electric locomotive requires a backup diesel locomotive for when it prematurely runs out of juice.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be interesting because the 17 other states that are following the CARB are the all the east coast states from Virginia to Maine plus Vermont; New Hampshire didn't sign on.
Those codgers among us will remember Jack Lalanne, probably the first ever fitness guru. I vaguely remembered reading that he once towed a tug boat across San Francisco Bay... so I just looked it up. At age 70 he towed 70 boats carrying 70 people for one and a half miles in Long Beach Harbor. While handcuffed.
ReplyDeleteOh.
Sadly for Gavin Newsom, LaLanne died in 2011 (at age 97) So he's not available to pull the trains.
When Californians are finally reduced to bringing in all their goods by camel and horseback, they'll start screeching about the mess the animals leave behind. So then, they'll have to go to coolies with buckets on shoulder poles, and doncha know, those suckers breathe out the dreaded CARBON!
ReplyDeleteHow much does a cargo train weigh?
ReplyDeleteA train can weigh anywhere from 4,000 tons (8,818,490 lbs) to 20,000 tons (44,092,452 lbs) or even more in some cases.
I wonder how many tons of batteries it will take to pull a 12,000 ton cargo train 500 miles?
Or even 50 miles?
And remember, whatever the weight is, the batteries have to also be pulled by the locomotive.
Stephen: Ah, those strong men of yore! Charles Atlas once pulled an observation car more than 100 feet along some railroad tracks. And even Old Paco, in the late 1940s, gained some local notoriety for lifting railroad ties (I once lifted a polished granite ashtray from my then-office-building, but that is another story).
ReplyDeleteOne of these days, when Californians find themselves sitting in the dark, sweltering from the heat in summer, and shivering from the cold in winter - inside their own houses - with no way of getting around town reliably or safely, crying into their carrot juice and munching on WEF-approved crickets, maybe some critical mass of these people will realize that they've been had. Of course, they won't be able to do anything about the situation - fixed elections and no guns - but at least they'll know the truth.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, for some years I was following the "Dies the Fire" series, by SM Stirling, a post apocalyptic story where gunpowder, internal combustion and electricity stop working on March 17, 1998; it's funny/endy because that's where these little tin gods are taking us; we are fortunate that their powers are limited and that we can vote with our feet to maybe avoid the worst of it.
ReplyDeleteExactly tom, except they want to keep the fire for themselves.
ReplyDelete