Neil Briscoe: Time To Pull The Plug On Electric Cars? | The Global Warming Policy Foundation

It seems rather a lot of investment in what can so far only be considered a failure. At the launch of Ireland’s great leap forward into an electric-car future we were promised that 2,000 electric cars would be sold by the end of 2011, with an eye to 10 per cent of the new-vehicle market consisting of electric cars by the end of 2020. That would amount to about 7,000 cars a year, assuming the current new-car market remains static for that long.

Instead, fewer than 200 such cars are on the road, despite assurances that Ireland was a perfect test case for electric-car sales: we are a relatively small island with a high level of home ownership (the better for charging cars on the driveway at home), and our climate doesn’t strain battery performance with extreme temperatures. If we are indeed the test case, then it seems electric cars don’t have much of a future.

WSJ Editorial: Electric Car Crash | The Global Warming Policy Foundation

More than any single failure, the larger lesson here is the eternal one about the folly of government industrial policy. Someday someone will find a way to store electric power for long periods, and someday someone may build a commercially viable electric car. We will be the first to cheer.

But the second to last people in the world to know when that day arrives will work for the Department of Energy, and the last will be U.S. Senators. In 2008 President Obama sold voters a fairy tale about millions of “green jobs” that he could conjure up merely by “investing” taxpayer money. The 2012 election is in part a referendum on whether Americans can be fooled again.

Climate change a no-show again despite debate’s energy focus - The Hill's E2-Wire

Both men sought to claim a pro-oil and pro-coal mantle during the debate at Hofstra University in New York State.
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Candy Crowley of CNN, the debate moderator, indicated afterward that she had a climate change question ready but was unable to get to it. Much of the debate time was taken up by the candidates interrupting each other, as well as Crowley.

The liberal Chris Hayes of MSNBC, during the network’s post-debate analysis, likened the climate-free energy portion to discussing smoking without discussing cancer.

Obama and Romney spar over energy in second debate, ignore climate yet again | Grist

At another point, Romney questioned Obama’s commitment to fossil fuels, saying the president “has not been Mr. Oil, or Mr. Gas, or Mr. Coal.” Obama couldn’t let that stand. He said it was Romney who has not been loyal enough to coal.