President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order decreeing that by 2030, half of all cars sold in the United States will run on electricity. The order is an example of the kind of central planning the Soviet Union indulged in with its five-year plans. Taken by itself, Biden’s order will have the same effect as King Canute’s order the tide cease coming in — which is to say, no effect at all.
To illustrate the lack of seriousness embodied in Biden’s executive order, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles, was absent among the union bosses and car company executives who attended the signing ceremony. Jalopnik suggests Musk was snubbed because Tesla factories are nonunion. Nevertheless, whatever success electric vehicles have had in recent years has resulted from innovation by Tesla.
In his remarks, Biden touched on his plans to build 500,000 charging stations and provide research and development funding for EV technology, particularly batteries. However, the president left out one thing that must happen before electric cars displace automobiles that run on the tried-and-true internal combustion engine. All of those EVs will need sources of electricity to charge.
Ay, there’s the rub.
If half of all automobiles coming off the assembly line in 2030 will run on electricity, more power plants must be built so they can keep rolling. The problem is that the same environmentalists cheering the electric car mandate have opposed building more electrical capacity unless it runs on solar and wind. They oppose nuclear power and fossil fuels, even from plants that use carbon capture technology.
Clearly, if Biden is serious about encouraging the proliferation of electric cars and not just virtue signaling to Green New Dealers, he will have to increase America’s electric power capacity considerably. He needs to reverse some measures he has taken to discourage fossil fuel exploitation in the U.S. His cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline was especially unfortunate in terms of maintaining and increasing America’s energy dominance.
Biden must remove barriers to the development of new nuclear power. Rep Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, has proposed measures to encourage nuclear power plant development. Bill Gates is undertaking the building of nuclear power plants based on innovative technologies, with the first to replace a retiring coal-fired plant in Wyoming.
Meanwhile, 8 Rivers Capital is planning to build carbon capture power plants in both Colorado and Illinois. The technology is based on a carbon capture plant running successfully in La Porte, Texas, for the past several years. Instead of emitting carbon dioxide as exhaust into the atmosphere, carbon capture plants use it to turn their turbines and then store it underground for later sale to various vendors.
Elon Musk would be pleased to sell you an electric vehicle, a rooftop solar power unit, and a home recharging station. In effect, you would be able to recharge your electric car at home before commuting to work or going out for a night on the town.
Biden likely will not succeed in mandating that half of all automobiles be electric by 2030. Except for the moon landing, those kinds of government decrees rarely, if ever, work. But by modifying his policy and paying attention to what is needed to keep electric cars on the road, the president could go a long way toward sustainable growth of the market for vehicles that run on electricity instead of gasoline and diesel.
Mark Whittington, who frequently writes about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration titled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
