From Reuters: “a previously unreported and expensive gap.” “For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles—leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric. “And now those battery packs are piling up in…
Category: The Environmental Blog
Too Much Recycled Cardboard?
The usual story is that people don’t recycle enough. But now there is an oversupply of recycled cardboard (in the trade called OCC for Old Corrugated Cardboard), writes Katie Pyzyk for Waste Dive. Demand from companies for recycled cardboard has fallen dramatically—in February prices for the recycled cardboard were 74 percent lower than in February…
Monday Roundup
The news is not all that encouraging:
- Secretary of the Navy says climate change is one of his top priorities (not China, apparently, and not ships, as the Biden administration seeks to cut the Navy by two ships).
- Wind and solar are not cheaper than other sources of electricity, and here’s why that’s a secret.
- Energy Secretary Granholm says China is doing a good job on climate change . . . as China produces a record amount of coal.
- In India, the federal government “has asked coastal plants to import as much coal as possible and promised to provide loans to do so.”
Why East Palestine Citizens Should Relax a Bit
The major pollutant from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment was vinyl chloride. It’s not as dangerous as it’s been portrayed—ask the National Fire Prevention Association. Writes Josh Holm in Reason: “Vinyl chloride, a chemical long used to make PVC plastics, is being portrayed as something more suitable for capital punishment than for a routine…
People Take Up Too Much Biomass
A very odd story has appeared in Science Magazine. Elizabeth Pennisi writes that humans are overrunning the earth. The evidence is that they weigh a whole lot more than wild animals. A new estimate of biomass “concludes that wild land mammals alive now have a total biomass of 22 million tons, and marine mammals account…
‘Green’ Agenda Relies on Slave and Child Labor in China and Africa
H. Sterling Burnett writes on Townhall: “The International Energy Agency reports that offshore wind requires more scarce minerals, rare earth elements, and other critical metals per kilowatt hour of energy produced than any other source of electric power generation, renewable and non-renewable alike. Onshore wind and solar are the next most critical-mineral-intensive sources. “The vast majority…