From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Greens want electric cars — but not the things required to run them   
   By Glenn H. Reynolds, June 13, 2023, NY Post    
      
   Why is it that greens want everyone to drive electric cars but don’t want   
   people to have electricity? Or, it seems, the cars.   
      
   I noted last week in these pages how the people who want everyone to have an   
   electric car in the garage have also been pursuing policies that, per the   
   North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s latest report, are likely   
   to result in rolling    
   blackouts this summer.    
      
   Fossil and nuclear plants are being taken offline (bye, Indian Point!) while   
   their replacement with “renewables” like wind and solar lags and often   
   fails to produce power when it’s most needed.   
      
   Nothing has improved on that front. But the thing about electric cars is that   
   they don’t just need electricity, they also need batteries to store it in.   
   And electric motors.   
      
   That’s awkward because those cars and batteries require lots of copper and   
   other metals, plus the extraction of “rare earth” minerals that come   
   mostly from China and Africa, where they’re often produced by child or slave   
   labor.   
      
   (We used to mine rare earths in America, but the enviros basically got that   
   shut down. It’s easier for companies to get the stuff out of the ground in   
   places where there aren’t sandal-wearing scolds everywhere.)   
      
   Well, now it looks like we have a solution to the problem.   
      
   Norway has found vast resources of metals and rare earths on the seabed off   
   its coast and has started preparations to mine them across an underwater   
   region roughly the size of Germany.   
      
   According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, which manages seabed   
   resources, the sea bottom hosts polymetallic nodules that include magnesium,   
   cobalt, niobium and rare-earth minerals.   
      
   Just the thing for manufacturing batteries and motors for electric cars and   
   windings for wind turbines too.   
      
   Naturally, environmentalists everywhere were ecstatic.   
      
   “This allows the production of wind turbines and electric cars without the   
   environmental damage and human-rights injuries associated with today’s   
   extraction efforts. Plus, it’s material sourced from a modern NATO country   
   instead of a hostile nation    
   like the People’s Republic of China,” said one spokesperson. “It’s a   
   win for everyone.”   
      
   Haha, just kidding. They said no such thing.   
      
   Instead, environmentalists are calling for a (likely lengthy) pause in such   
   mining efforts, for environmental reasons.   
      
   It sometimes seems as if the last invention these people approved of was the   
   wet blanket.   
      
   The International Seabed Authority, an arm of the United Nations, is expected   
   to issue new regulations governing seabed mining this summer.   
      
   The World Wildlife Foundation calls such mining an “avoidable environmental   
   disaster,” saying “there are many unknowns and much to do in ocean   
   science, policy and industry innovations before any deep seabed mining   
   activities should be allowed to    
   take place.”   
      
   Greenpeace hates it too.   
      
   These organizations are much quieter about the exploitation of minerals —   
   and people — in places like China and Africa.   
      
   But the bottom line is: If you endorse the spread of electric cars, you by   
   extension endorse the extraction of the resources it takes to build and charge   
   them.   
      
   If you support a policy but oppose its prerequisites, then you’re either a   
   fool or a fraud. Or maybe both.   
      
   A realistic and sensible electric-car policy would support reliable, safe,   
   environmentally friendly power to charge them — which means plants fired by   
   nuclear power and fracked gas.   
      
   And it would endorse the safe, clean and humane extraction of the necessary   
   minerals, which probably means deep-seabed mining.   
      
   If you’re against those things, you’re not being realistic and sensible,   
   and your policy proposals — or demands or mandates, which is what the calls   
   for electric cars have become — should be ignored and even mocked.   
      
   Environmentalists are basically against those things, which means that they   
   should be ignored and even mocked.   
      
   The planet has its needs, of course, and those deserve some respect.   
      
   But people have needs too, and when environmentalists seem reflexively against   
   every new way of producing power or resources, it seems a bit suspicious.   
      
   Opposing every new venture is probably good for fundraising, as alarmist   
   “Save the Sea!” emails probably get devoted contributors to open their   
   (Venmo) wallets.   
      
   But if your positions are driven as much by fundraising as by science,   
   there’s no reason for anyone else to take them seriously.   
      
   Honestly, when people start working to bring us cheap energy and metals from   
   the Moon and the asteroids, environmentalists will probably complain about   
   that too. And they’re entitled to complain if they want.   
      
   What they’re not entitled to is to be taken seriously.   
      
   Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and   
   founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.   
      
   https://nypost.com/2023/06/13/greens-want-electric-cars-but-not-   
   he-things-required-to-run-them/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)