Part II – Governor Newsom’s Mathematical Shortcomings are His Recall Challenges

Published May 10, 2021

This Op Ed is a continuation of California Governor Newsom’s destructive energy policies and direction that have inflicted so much financial damage to the State that it may take decades to recover. PART I from May 3, 2021 discussed many of his actions that appear to be mostly driven by emotions and the need for instant gratification. 

Here is a continuation of the 14 shortcomings listed last week in PART I:

Energy Infrastructure

  1. In his dream of an “electric world”, he does not comprehend that electricity alone cannot support the military, aviation, cruise ships, merchant ships, or provide the oil derivatives that are the basis of more than  6,000 products in our daily lives, including the medical industry that was virtually non-existent before 1900. Newsom never discusses life without those products.
  • He remains unaware that exorbitant energy costs have been contributory to the rapid growth of “energy poverty” and makes California’s economic recovery from the pandemic even more challenging for the 18 million (45 percent of the 40 million Californians) that represent the Hispanic and African American  populations of the state.
  • He continues biasing systemic racial, health, economic, and environmental injustices that persist against the economic survivability of those that can least afford expensive energy, those with low income and those retirees on fixed incomes.  Poverty, not global warming, remains the biggest challenge.
  • Automobiles are the survival mechanism for low-income people. If you increase the cost of automobiles and the costs of fuel, you hurt low-income people who are already forced to pay almost $1.00 more per gallon of fuel than the rest of the country. Newsom never discusses that regressive expense on the less fortunate.
  • High energy costs trickle down to everything in our daily lives, from the cost of food, lumber, and services, and ultimately to the high cost of living and housing in California and perpetuates the rise in homelessness and poverty.
  • Under Newsom’s direction (I did not use the word “leadership”) the future looks very bleak for ALL 40 million residents of the state as the economy starts to recover back to near-normal energy demands for the fifth largest economy in the world. The Governor refuses to focus on REDUCING the cost of energy.
  • The Governor believes it’s better to import crude oil instead of increasing in-state crude oil production from the largest shale reserves and ocean crude oil reserves in the country, in the Monterey Shale and Pacific Ocean.  There is approximately 2 billion barrels offshore Santa Barbara that are discovered, estimated and producible, but subject to state and federal moratoria on production. The larger reserves are within 7 miles of the coast. This number is significant in that, with recently proven slant-drilling technology, formations within 7 miles of shore are accessible mostly from land-based slant drilling, with NO offshore spill risk.  

Electric Vehicle Projections

  • With half of the EV’s in the entire country being located in California, a recent 2021 California study results were totally contradictory to the Governor’s EV goals for the state as it shows that EV’s are driven half as much as internal combustion engine vehicles. The study illustrates that EV’s are generally second vehicles and not the primary workhorse vehicle for those few elites that can afford them.
  • For California EV lovers,
  • The good news is that 50% of all EV’s in America are in CA
  • The bad news is that 18% Of EV Drivers In California Switched Back To Gasoline Cars

Close to a fifth of all EV drivers in California have switched back to gasoline cars because charging their electric cars was a hassle, according to a new study bound to send ripples across an industry that has plans for market domination.

 

  1. To date, zero and low emission vehicles are generally from the hybrid and electric car owners which are a scholarly bunch; over 70 percent of EV owners have a four-year college or post-graduate degree. This likely explains why the average household income of EV purchasers is upwards of $200,000. Will the less fortunate receive greater subsidies to buy an EV?
  1. Newsom wants all 30 plus million vehicles in the state to be EV’s but has yet to accept the fact that there may not be enough of the “green” exotic minerals and metals in the world to accomplish that milestone. According to Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, replacing all the United Kingdom’s 32 million light duty vehicles with next-generation EVs would require huge quantities of materials to manufacture 32 million EV batteries: such as lithium, cobalt, copper, and neodymium.

Intermittent Electricity Infrastructure

  1. The Governor rural landowners and conservationists, as those kinds of conflicts grow and intensify as California and other states work to meet their climate goals. Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law released a report in February 2021 that found local governments in 31 states have adopted at least 100 ordinances blocking or restricting new intermittent electricity facilities. Where are the intermittent electricity farms located to replace shuttered power plants?
  1. Over the past century, there have been two significant developments. First, the U.S. has not expanded domestic mining, and, in most cases, the country’s production of nearly all minerals has declined. Second, the demand for minerals has dramatically increased. These two intersecting trends have led to significant transformations in supply-chain dependencies, reflected in the table of 2019 U.S. NET IMPORT RELIANCE.  Imports today account for 100% of some 17 critical minerals, and, for 29 others, net imports account for more than half of demand.
  1. California’s Governor wants to be heavily dependent on China, a Communist country that controls most of the “green” exotic mineral and metals and reaps enormous profits from America while poisoning its own environment and exploiting poor people, including women and children, in slave-labor conditions to provide the rare-earth minerals on which the green technologies rely.

Unfortunately, those less likely to cast their ballot at the upcoming recall election, are the current poverty and homeless populations of California, and those destined to be part of those numbers because of Governor Newsom’s numerous mathematical shortcomings.

 

[Originally posted on California Political Review]