The Highwire with Del Bigtree - THE EXPLOSIVE PROBLEM WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

America’s energy needs are surging with no viable options in the short term. Meanwhile, the lithium batteries in our homes and cars are found to be riskier than once thought.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This was the headline that just came out. This is PBS. It says coal-fired plants will have to capture emissions or shut down, says strict new EPA rule. So we have legislation here. EPA is making this rule. And it says the EPA rules would not mandate use of equipment to capture and store carbon emissions, a technology that is expensive and still being developed. Instead, the agency would set caps on carbon dioxide pollution that plant operators would have to meet. Still, the regulation is expected to lead to greater use of carbon capture equipment, only a handful of projects are operating in the country despite years of research. So coal plants are a major source of energy during racism in this country. And in the article, they're saying the technology to capture this is super expensive, it's still being developed, years of research, there's only a handful of projects actually operating. And the EPA is saying, well, hey, coal plants, go figure that out, or we're going to shut you down, even though that's the reality of the case. And at the same time, these headlines are happening.

You're seeing this headline from the Washington Post. Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power. And so you go into this headline. I thought we were switching over to a greater green energy technology, but it says vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short on power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation's creaking power grid. And it goes on to show what type of energy demand we're looking at here.

So see, from starting at 2017, you have less than 300,000 gigawatt hours. And then on 2023, it jumps up to 563.9. And so you're almost doubling what we're looking at here, what we're needing for 2023. And it says in this article, the situation is sparking battles across a nation over who will pay for new power supplies with regulators worrying that residential tax rate payers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades. It also threatens to stifle the transition to cleaner energy as utility executives lobby to delay the retirement of fossil fuel plants and bring more online.

The power crunch imperils their ability to supply the energy that will be needed to charge the millions of electric cars and household appliances required to meet state and federal climate goals. Then they talked to this gentleman here. He says, when you look at the numbers, it is staggering, says Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity. says it makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How are the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before. This is a disaster reality. Reality of this is so obvious. I mean, it's so how did this happen? We have morons running the world. That's how it happens. This is basic math. I mean, we've been saying

it from the beginning, all right, electric cars. It doesn't mean someone gets an electric car and says, see, I'm not creating any pollution. Yeah, but the coal factory that is charging that battery is, all you did was take the power plant that was once inside of your car and put more stress on the coal fired plant that's going to now have to produce your energy when you used to produce it yourself with a gas engine. I mean, it's so obvious that switching everything to electrical, you have no grid that can handle that. And I'm not against moving in that direction.

But when you build the vehicles that all use electricity before building. the grid that could handle that expansion, you're a bunch of morons. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, it is shocking. We're here. It's shocking that we've elected this level of dumb, you know what's. And that's what's going on at the policy level, at the higher up level, and that comes down to the factories and the power generators. But what about what we deal with in our own lives and our own homes? And so this is the electric batteries. We're going to an all-electric economy and the electric batteries right now are lithium-based and this is what is in i mean you probably could go into your house right now when you're done with this listening to our show and you could probably

find 10 to 20 items in your house that are powered by lithium batteries um and so we're finding out that these are a lot more dangerous than we were told or then or that we knew so the problem is how do we deal with that so this is paris this is one of their headlines because they have electric buses there Paras suspends electric bus fleet after two fires. Another one for electric cars. Electric cars risk becoming uninsurable. It says Jonathan Hewitt, Chief Executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurers automotive research centers,

said a lack of insight and understanding about the cost of repairing damage electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to provide coverage altogether. Mr. Hewitt said, the challenge is that we have no way of understanding whether the battery has been compromised or damaged in any way. The threat of thermal runaway,

means that a catastrophic fire can take place if the cells of the battery have been damaged in a collision. And then you have this out of Australia, the EVS electric vehicle crash victims could be left to die in battery fires without training for responders' inquiry told. So with these batteries, they don't just start a fire and put themselves out like a normal fire. What they do is they explode very quickly, very rapidly at a very hot temperatures, almost like a bomb, and they create excessive amounts of smoke. So take for instance, for instance an e-bike. People store their e-bikes in their house. They charge their e-bike and when these go up, we have a video of this, when these go up from zero to just a complete house fire.

Take a look at this video. All right. That's really terrifying. I mean that just it's like a nuclear bomb goes off right inside of your house. You know, and I, you know, when we start looking this video, I thought about my son, you know, has a remote control thing with a lithium battery, and it wasn't working. I was checking it out, and I plugged it in, and in about 10 seconds, it got red hot. Something was malfunctioning, but I just thought, what happens if that's like under his bed, where it stays all the time, and he usually charges it, and we weren't paying attention? Boom. I mean, this is something, and how many of these are going to happen before we finally say,

whoa, whoa, we'll pump the brakes here. We've got to figure out how to deal with this. And how do you put an electrical fire out? This is the conversation now that a lot of cities are having because these e-bikes are a preferred way to get around in cities for a lot of people. And there's obviously a large population density in the cities. This is Portland. We're going to go through a lot of cities here. This is the problem that's coming to the surface.

Electric scooter explodes, fills apartment building with smoke in Portland in New York. Congress and rare agreement on e-bike battery bill pushed by New York reps. And also in New York, more New York City fires caused by lithium. BMI on batteries from eBikes in two months than in all of 2019 FDNY chief. When you go into the article and it's even worse, it says, well, there were only 30 fires related to the batteries in 2019. The number more than tripled by 2021 with 104 fires reported. That year also saw four fatalities.

Well, no one was reported to have died from the blazes in 2019 or 2020. The amount of battery-related fires more than double the following year, with 220 fires reported as well as six deaths confirmed. Last year, the FDNY reported 268 fires involved. and lithium on batteries, 150 injuries and 18 deaths. Same thing happening in London. And notice it's all the high concentration cities that are moving over to this all-electric grid to get a lot of people with these bikes. They're calling it unexploded bombs is the headline. Call for action after 11 deaths in the UK due to e-bike fires. It says new figures produced by

the Office for Product and Safety Standards drawn from data from the UK Fire and Rescue Services reveal what is believed to be the highest number of deaths recorded from e-bike fires in the UK A. A. MPs and safety groups are calling for third-party certification to ensure e-bikes, e-scooters, and their batteries are approved by an independent body before being available for sale. This is already the case for other high-risk products such as fireworks. And even the London Fire Brigade, their headline, new record high of e-bike and e-scooter

fires in London. They talked to the fire chief. He says, we recognize the environmental benefits that bring to travel in our city. But the stark reality is that some of these vehicles are proven to be incredibly dangerous. particularly if they have been modified with secondhand products or batteries are used with the wrong chargers. So some of the tips they were giving, I mean, this is almost something we do here, do a public service announcement. They're saying don't store these. If you're living in apartment, a lot of people charge them in hallways. Do not do that. Do not do that at night because what it does is it blocks exits when it goes up.

It fills everything with smoke. People can't get out of the apartments. Don't charge any of these things at night where you can't see them or you can't monitor them. And don't buy from third parties. You want to buy from reputable dealers, especially online. There's a lot of shady stuff going on online. So you've got to check where you're buying it from and make sure they're certified. You know, this is one of those things that you imagine if you had 18 deaths from raw milk, we'd be hearing about it.

And they're already shutting it down at the idea that's something like that. Or vitamins, as we're seeing, many laws being passed in Canada to stop things that never cause death. Yet when the government has an agenda, when it really cares about something, something, boy, it's really good at looking the other way, putting out a couple warnings and letting, you know, tens of people, hundreds of fires started. It really just shows you the hypocrisy of how our government actually works, and really the government around the world. Unfortunately, more and more often, America doesn't really rise above any of it. We seem to be caught up in as much manipulation and corruption as other nations around the world.