Category: Alternative Subsidy

Our Chinese-Installed Governor In Ottawa

Alternative Subsidy Chinada New Governor War On Agriculture 23 Comments

The more things stay the same, the more things stay the same.

Why Are We Trading Our Breadbasket for a Battery Pack?

In protecting a shaky electric vehicle dream, Ottawa is putting a $43-billion canola reality at risk — sacrificing a cornerstone of our agricultural economy for a battery pack that may never deliver. […]

The backdrop to all of this is Ottawa’s high-stakes bet on the EV sector. Despite nearly $50 billion in combined federal and provincial investments, Canada’s EV industry is faltering. Sales are dropping, mandates are clashing with market realities, and major projects are delayed or shelved. Without a significant acceleration in charging infrastructure, policy recalibration, and restored investor confidence, the sector risks collapse.

Ottawa’s trade stance is effectively protecting a fragile EV industry at the expense of a robust and profitable canola sector. One is speculative and policy-driven; the other is market-proven and globally competitive. The policy choice here should be obvious: Canada must either adjust its EV tariff position toward China or carve out exemptions to protect agricultural exports. Beijing has made its expectations clear.

Related: Built in 1960, the Second Narrows Bridge was not designed for the volume and weight of modern freight trains, which have grown substantially in size and frequency to meet rising global demand.

Y2Kyoto: Blunder Down Under

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult Y2Kyoto 3 Comments

You can’t cheat Father Physics.

“The head of one of Australia’s biggest power retailers has warned that Australia’s energy transition is veering out of control, pointing to a major market disruption that hit New South Wales as evidence of the turmoil. During a week in which NSW agreed to extend the life of the state’s biggest coal plant, Alinta boss Jeff Dimery cited dramatic events in the market earlier in the month to argue the system was in distress.

The Australian Energy Market Operator was forced to step into the NSW market and cap wholesale prices between May 8 and 15 after a series of shocks sent costs into orbit. It’s believed to be only the second time the market operator has had to make such an intervention in NSW — the first being the energy crisis of 2022.”

[…]

“He said the energy system was getting more fragile as the addition of new clean sources of power failed to keep pace with the retirement of coal-fired generation.”

Via Doomberg.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult 3 Comments

Sunnova’s Enronish Ending;

Sunnova’s bankruptcy saga reads like a sequel to Enron’s downfall, complete with glitzy deceptions and government-fueled illusions. Back in February, dealers gathered at a lavish summit, expecting praise and payments. Instead, they were fed assurances by then-CEO John Berger, an Enron alum, that funds were secure if they kept installing solar systems. But the truth was grim: Sunnova was already teetering, months behind on reimbursements, and hiding severe liquidity issues.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 5 Comments

EVs Are Out, Gasoline Power Is In At GM’s Orion Plant

Don’t look now, but General Motors is pulling the plug on building EVs at its Orion facility in Michigan. Confirming the news yesterday, it will instead assemble an array of light-duty pickup trucks and the Cadillac Escalade, said to be all part of a $4 billion push to meet demand for gasoline-powered vehicles in this country.Local media, specifically The Freep (Detroit Free Press) were among the first to report on the story.

Related: EV pickup truck sales in the U.S. in Q2 2025, according to new Cox Auto data

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy New Governor 23 Comments

Brian Kingston;

Electric vehicle (EV) sales have plummeted in Canada, dropping by a staggering 53% between Q4 of 2024 and Q1 of 2025.

This sharp decline in sales comes at the very moment governments across Canada have imposed increasingly aggressive EV sales mandates requiring consumers to switch to EVs.

An immediate course correction is required before government mandates wreak havoc on consumers and the auto industry, jeopardizing the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of people it employs.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy Y2Kyoto 9 Comments

The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

When a grid failure plunged 55 million people in Spain and Portugal into darkness at the end of April, it should have been a wake-up call on green energy. Climate activists promised that solar and wind power were the future of cheap, dependable electricity. The massive half-day blackout shows otherwise. The nature of solar and wind generation makes grids that rely on them more prone to collapse—an issue that’s particularly expensive to ameliorate. […]

Grids need to stay on a very stable frequency—generally 50 Hertz in Europe—or else you get blackouts. Fossil-fuel, hydro and nuclear generation all solve this problem naturally because they generate energy by powering massive spinning turbines. The inertia of these heavy rotating masses resists changes in speed and hence frequency, so that when sudden demand swings would otherwise drop or hike grid frequency, the turbines work as immense buffers. But wind and solar don’t power such heavy turbines to generate energy. It’s possible to make up for this with cutting-edge technology such as advanced inverters or synthetic inertia. But many solar and wind farms haven’t undergone these expensive upgrades. If a grid dominated by those two power sources gets off frequency, a blackout is more likely than in a system that relies on other energy sources.

Green energy manufacturer can’t afford the cost of energy;

A major supplier to Britain’s green energy industry is set to close after its Japanese owner failed to clinch a rescue deal for the company and its 250 workers.

Wigan-based Electric Glass Fiber UK (EGFU), which is owned by Nippon Electric Glass (NEG), makes vital components used in wind turbines and electric cars. Its closure puts net zero supply chains under threat.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 24 Comments

Canada’s EV mandate must be repealed, Ford Canada CEO says

Ford Canada CEO Bev Goodman said June 10 that Canada’s zero-emission vehicle mandate must be repealed as the consumer appetite for electric vehicles falls dramatically short of government requirements.

“The targets on full battery-electric vehicles need to be aligned with what customers want, and customers have spoken,” she said at the Canada Automotive Summit, hosted in Vaughan, Ont., by the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 10 Comments

GCaptain;

The U.S. Coast Guard is responding to a fire on board the 600-foot car carrier Morning Midas carrying hundreds of electric vehicles approximately 300 miles off the coast of Alaska.

The vessel departed from Yantai, China on May 26 with destination Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico where it was expected on June 15. According to shipping database Equasis the 2006 Morning Midas is owned by Hawthorn Navigation Inc. out of London with management by Zodiac Maritime Limited.

Zodiac Maritime has confirmed the vessel is loaded with around 3,000 vehicles, 800 of which are electric vehicles. Smoke was initially seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles, according to the statement.

Related: The decommissioned buses are said to be a mixture of electric-powered and gas buses in that lot, but it’s unclear which are burning currently burning.

(h/t Joe, Kenji)

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 68 Comments

Ford EV sales “fall off a cliff”.

The left spent the last 20 years pushing electric cars as a moral imperative. Once the batsignal went out that was okay to torch and vandalize Musk’s cars because they don’t like the cut of his jib, that also signaled that earlier moral imperative has been concluded. Why would anyone go through the headache of owning an electric car when its true believers hate one of its most prominent manufacturers?

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