I wrote a post yesterday about alcohol as an alternative to fossil fuels and the Electric Car Nuts from the whacko-left came out of the woodwork. So I felt compelled to do this follow-up about the drawbacks of the electric car... not that any of them are actually going to "get it." I'll try to keep this as simple as possible so they might be able to follow along.
First, electric cars run on batteries. Batteries are made of, among other things, cobalt. Cobalt is mined in the Congo (that's in Africa) by children who are kept in a condition of virtual slavery. The overseers, usually from Rwanda (that's in Africa too) cut hands and feet off children that protest the harsh conditions. Here are a couple of videos that show what it's like to work there.
Similarly, this shows more of the hazardous conditions in the mines.
Now I understand that these are just a bunch of black kids in Africa that aren't as important as things like "the environment" and the importance of "going green," but the next time you get in your Prius to go to the anti-Trump rally to show off your "Love Trumps Hate" t-shirt, you might want to give these kids a thought... Nah- they're not white upper-middle class kids so what do they matter. Well, I'm not a liberal, so they matter a great deal to me. In fact I wrote a series of articles called Raping Africa, in which I devoted two parts to the Congo. (see link) I also will include another link that shows how vital cobalt is to the electric car industry.
There are a few other practical considerations as well. First, there are currently 263 million autos in America, all of which can be converted to alcohol for about $200 each. This is much more cost effective than scrapping them all and starting over. Also somebody kept harping about "wind and solar." Wind turbines are expensive, involve the use of environmentally unsound materials, produce very little electricity and kill off a lot of birds. Solar is fine as far as an adjunct to existing electricity. In other words it can help lower your electric bills, but won't produce enough electricity to do the job.
Here's something else to think about. If you plan to scrap America's fleet of internal combustion vehicles and replace them with all electric, how are you going to charge them all? The existing electric grid won't produce anywhere enough juice. So you would have to build more coal, diesel, or nuclear plants... a lot more!
Here's something else. Trucks... most of the things we take for granted every day (food, etc.) are shipped by truck and semi's can't be converted to electric power. Busses in cities may, but it would be a huge task, requiring a vast network of overhead wires. I still maintain that alcohol is the far better solution and that little black kids in Africa matter to me if not to you.
@richq11/raping-africa-the-land-god-forgot
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cobalt-demand-investors-idUSKBN15T1VR
Just something to think about... Oops, I forgot- you're liberals!
