Planet Earth Needs You

Are electric cars more expensive to operate than gasoline powered cars?  By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams If you Google the question above you will get some very recent articles that claim that electric vehicles (EV) are more expensive to operate than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE). One of these articles was sent to me by a friend who knew I had recently received my Ford Mustang Mach-E.   Being a proud “Car Guy,” I excessively research a car before I make my purchase. Therefore, prior to placing the order for my all-electric Mustang Mach-E, I spent months reading dozens of articles and viewing dozens of YouTube videos on everything related to electric vehicles. Being both an environmentalist and a degreed scientist my research included not just the features of the car but its impact on the environment and the science and engineering behind the development of the batteries and vehicle.   I read the article that was sent to me, The Real Costs of Charging an ...

  A CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured last year, sickening dozens of people. What does it forecast for the massive proposed buildout of pipelines across the U.S.? By Dan Zegart, Huffington Post The US has been spending billions for unproven carbon capture technology and intends to spend more Boondoggle- A wasteful or extravagant project with no practical value By Michael Coppola and Nancy Lazar The fossil fuel industry has convinced the Biden administration that carbon capture is a critical technology needed to prevent further climate damage. They view carbon capture as a way to counter the CO2 that fossil fuel puts into the air when used as a fuel. Carbon capture is a process that sequesters carbon dioxide from the factories or power plants that produce it and stores it somewhere instead of letting it go into the atmosphere. They would like to argue that as long as they remove as much CO2 as they put in from burning fossil fuels the combined process is greenhouse gas neutral. T...

  The  Eiffel   Tower  was illuminated green, using a  Toyota  fuel cell powered generator.   International hydrogen expert   Michael Liebreich, founder of energy research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance, slammed the display as one of the “stupidest things” he’d witnessed because of the light show’s gross inefficiency. By Michael Coppola and Nancy Lazar “Green Hydrogen” The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Grand Deception The fossil fuel industry joined up with Toyota to light up the  Eiffel   Tower  with a hydrogen fuel cell to show that fuel cells can make green electricity. Why are petroleum companies promoting fuel cells? They don't sell hydrogen. But, they do sell methane, coal and oil which are used to make hydrogen. By applying super heated steam to any of their three products you can get hydrogen. All commercially available hydrogen today is produced this way. The problem with this method is that it produces tremendous amoun...

  Planet Earth Needs your Help Need a break from “Breaking Bad”?   Try the new Netflix documentary “Breaking Boundaries. A very accurate and scientific presentation of what our planet and our civilization are headed for in the very near future. Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube https://youtu.be/Gb6wQtNjblk   All Previous Articles https://planetearthneedsyou.blogspot.com/

  Earlier this month Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, made a little quip statement about owning an electric vehicle to a reporter. His question was, " Obviously, we have the acute issues with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.  But looking more holistically in a macro view, how does this speed up the efforts at DOE to move in more of a renewable direction since this is going to have an impact on people at the pump?" Her response was, " Yeah, I mean, we obviously are 'all in' on making sure that we meet the President’s goals of getting to 100   percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly." I honestly do not see the connection between a gas shortage and the development of a green energy infrastructure.   But, that aside, I was not surprised that the conservative media immediately put forward their argument against electrifying al...

             Fukushima daiichi nuclear disaster So many news articles on the climate emergency are showing up on line. I just saw one titled “It’s Crunch Time and Biden’s Climate Gambit Faces Steep Hurdles.” I want to share some thoughts on some of its main points.   I am not going to comment on the political statements in this article and leave that to the political pundits. But I would like to make counter arguments to the scientific and economic arguments presented by the various groups mentioned in the article. Let’s start off with this statement from the article:   “Republican leaders on Capitol Hill say forcing utilities to turn away from coal, oil and gas will mean higher electric bills.”   At the very least this statement is false because coal has been priced out of the market by all other sources of energy. So saying that to ‘stop burning coal’ is going to make electric bills higher is ridiculous. It’s akin to sayin...

  Methane gas is a significant greenhouse gas, roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.  Agriculture and in particular animal agriculture is a large source of this greenhouse gas. The key sources of methane in animal agriculture are the belching of methane from ruminant animals and the decomposition of their waste. Digestion alone produces 30 to 50 quarts of carbon dioxide and methane gas, per hour, per animal! T remendous quantities of farmland are also needed to support the meat and dairy industry for grazing or for the growing of feed. In developing nations land must be cleared of forests which if left intact would capture carbon dioxide. Furthermore nitrogen fertilizers used to grow the feed puts nitrous oxides into the air which are almost 300 times more potent than CO2. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates about 14.5 % of GHG’s or 7.1 gigatons of CO2 equivalent, can be attributed to the livestock sector annually. This is broadly equivalent to...