Wyoming ‘Bans’ Electric Cars In Dumb Performative Oil Industry Ass Kissing

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

While some states work on how best to phase out traditional gas cars to help mitigate the climate’s steady collapse, Wyoming is busy showcasing how far its head is lodged up the ass of the oil and gas industry.

Last week Wyoming’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 4, which calls for a phaseout of new electric vehicle sales by 2035:

The bill states that “oil and gas production has long been one of Wyoming’s proud and valued industries” and has generated “countless jobs” and “contributed revenues” to the state. It goes on to say that Wyoming’s “vast stretches of highway, coupled with a lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure” would make “widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable.”

This being 2023 Republicans, the resolution doesn’t actually fucking do anything beyond trolling electric vehicle supporters and advertising these politicians’ mindless fealty to energy interests. It’s something Wyoming State Senator Senator Brian Boner is quite proud of as he attempts to make something resembling a point of some kind:

“I’m interested in making sure that the solutions that some folks want to the so-called climate crisis are actually practical in real life,” GOP co-sponsor Sen. Brian Boner said, according to Cowboy State Daily. “I just don’t appreciate when other states try to force technology that isn’t ready.”

Boner even acknowledged the resolution’s trolling nature. “One might even say tongue-in-cheek,” Boner said of the resolution, adding, “But obviously it’s a very serious issue that deserves some public discussion.”

Yes, the steady climate catastrophe, whose violent and fatal impact is being seen every day on the news, requires the kind of serious public discussion one only finds through… meaningless political performances whose only function is to annoy others and obstruct progress.

North Carolina engaged in a similar performance lately when it futilely proposed a bill demanding all cities in the state destroy all electric vehicle charging stations state wide. The bill also demanded that any business that offers free charging itemize the cost said chargers impose on patrons, in a weird, clumsy bid to potentially shame them away from embracing electric vehicles.

All told it’s the kind of nonsensical, trolling, corrupt, childish gibberish the modern GOP has become synonymous with. It’s a party that has no policy solutions, but does provide endless zero-calorie drivel that makes finding real solutions to real problems significantly more difficult.

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Comments on “Wyoming ‘Bans’ Electric Cars In Dumb Performative Oil Industry Ass Kissing”

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Whatever happened to consumer choice?

It was tossed out the window in California. If consumers find out that rolling blackouts from a broken electrical grid mean they can’t even get to work, the only people left in California will be the homeless and the politicians. Everyone else will abandon the sinking economic ship for locations that have sanity, like Wyoming.

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:

That does happen…and those people are running their car so as not to freeze to death. (Safe if the tail pipe isn’t blocked but it often is, or there’s a crack somewhere that’s not a problem when you’re moving). Of course in an electric car the battery would run out after some hours and you’d freeze anyway.

There’s also the issue that once those cars run out of power, if the majority are electric, you’re basically going to have to tow each one individually, could take weeks.

It just doesn’t work.

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Matthew Bennett says:

Electric cars don’t work very well, sorry. They’re expensive, toxic (chemically) and not even as low emission as you think. Fast charging is mostly a myth and their range sucks, and batteries are notoriously hard to improve upon. Even their raw power consumption would only ever make sense if we moved to nuclear power.

If you think electric cars are the future, you don’t understand physics very well. Ironically that’s one of the things I dislike about Musk….he’s been surfing a fad (and subsidies) he knows is temporary.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

The future should be hydrogen, but the obvious solutions are not always the most profitable.

Naysayers will bring up the Hindenburg .. as if we have not learned anything in the past eighty some years. Nasa has been running fuel cells for decades without a problem. At this point, I think a gasoline vehicle is more dangerous in an accident than a hydrogen vehicle.

Anyways, yeah – electric cars are an interim bandaid or something.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3

I’m glad you are humble enough to admit there are people out there who may be more knowledgeable than one’s self. Not enough people are capable of this, and it can be difficult.

I am not watching a video.

Hydrogen is the future, it is not a panacea. Look to nature and keep it simple. Of course one could simply continue with what we all know is killing us ….

David says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Hydrogen is a replacement for electricity. It is not an energy source but a way to transport it and usually is produced by electricity, or by sun energy on large areas that you could instead cover with solar cells.

It’s way faster to fill a (special) car tank with hydrogen than it is to fill a car battery with electrons. And it’s way more feasible (and with better handable substances) to tank hydrogen than it would be to swap electrolytes in a battery system.

So it’s quite imaginable that a hydrogen system will ultimately replace the bulk of the electricity storage in an electric car. To be able to work with regenerative braking etc, it might be a hybrid system where the hydrogen provides the base electric load.

So I agree that hydrogen has quite a lot of potential as energy carrier. But it is no source. It will still be more feasible to have hydrogen shipped from Saudi Arabia and other desert countries than put up electric transmission lines from all the way over there.

But it’s not clear how the cars will look (fuel cell? combustion? hybrid), how the “gas stations” will look, how the infrastructure will look. That’s not even in the state Carl Benz started with (namely, having to fill up your motorcoach at a drug store with benzine).

At the current point of time, the main use of hydrogen is as a magic buzzword and excuse for dragging your feet on everything energy-related.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:6

So you’re essentially substituting hydrogen generation as a storage medium for power sources (such as wind) which is intermittent and undependable which is probably better than batteries but hydrogen is also hard to store and transport. You’d probably be better off just generating power from the hydrogen.

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re:

Hydrogen is still pretty dangerous (as is lithium) unless you spend a LOT (both cost and weight) on the storage medium. Which we do. But it it has real costs. Also storage and transport is a big issue for the fueling stations. It’s a very small atom (y’know, the smallest) which means it leaks really well.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Is gasoline dangerous?

Imagine what it was like back in the horse and buggy days when the horseless carriage was introduced. Human nature says there would be all sort of silliness about how dangerous gasoline is and storage / distribution / traffic / buggy whips / etc / etc.

All these nasty nasty things will fuck up our shit so lets not do it ok?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The only known effective way to store hydrogen in bulk is to bond it with something else; carbon is, by far, the easiest one to work with, but you’re right back to burning hydrocarbons at that point, which doesn’t really advance you much.

As pure hydrogen, as a gas it has piss-poor energy per volume and will leak (albeit slowly) straight through a solid metal wall, and as a liquid it requires extreme cryogenic systems to maintain for even a short time.

Meanwhile you can haul gasoline around in a plastic jug.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

Read the sentence again, my friend, before you try correcting me.

I am aware there are other methods of binding hydrogen. That’s why I said “to something else”, not “to carbon”.

The reason we use hydrocarbons in the first place, though, is because that is, by far, the easiest way to store and transport hydrogen, and the only one that’s ever been made to operate at scale.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3

is to bond it with something else; carbon is, by far, the easiest one to work with, but you’re right back to burning hydrocarbons

Read the citation I gave you, as it includes carbon as one of the reversible storage materials. There is the technique of using carbon to store hydrogen in a reversible fashion, and that is not producing a hydrocarbon fuel.

OGquaker says:

Re: Re: Re: H bla bla H bla bla

The feeder stock of H is mined petroleum, thus this never-ending diatribe about H continues for decades. The electricity to make one gallon of gasoline is 3-6kwh, compressing H for transport is higher. SHELL is smarter, they just bought into the largest off-shore wind farm in the world, SHELL owns 30,000 charging stations plus 90,000 charging ports at homes or businesses in Europe. SHELL USA just bought the Volta E-car charging network, with over 900 charging stations so far in America.

Disclaimer: a tow-truck just went by with a wrecked NG fueled Honda, the phase-change points for NG, Ammonia, Propane are rational: H leaked so bad from the Artemis Moon rocket last year…. that NASA launched it with leaks. The Delta-IV has spark-plugs going continuously around the engines whenever fueled to mitigate leaking H.
Musk put up a $100m X-prize for anyone who can sequester waste Carbon from H production

Any Mouse says:

Wyoming and climate.

I don’t see how anyone who lives in Wyoming can deny Climate Change. At least not if you’ve spent any time at all in the western half of the state.

If you stand anywhere in the western half of the state, you will see mountains. 20 years ago, those mountains were snow capped year round. They had glaciers.

Now? The do not. And half the state can go outside and see it for themselves.

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Strawb (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

Good news is that if ALL the ice melted (unlikely) it would only raise sea levels 10 feet.

Yet another thing you’re wrong about:

“If all glaciers and ice sheets melted, global sea level would rise by more than 195 feet (60 meters).”
NASA

Not to mention that even if sea levels “only” rose 10 feet, it would still affect, if not kill, millions and millions of people and cause several trillion dollars worth of damage.

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Rocky says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Stupid troll is stupidly wrong as usual.

South Florida’s sprawling flood control system, increasingly unable to handle flood waters worsened by sea level rise and development, is getting a long overdue update.

Source: wlrn.org

Sea levels around Florida are rising as much as 1 inch every 3 years, and tidal flooding in some areas of the state has increased 352% since 2000.

Source: sealevelrise.org

As storm flooding worsens, federal report finds Florida has the most to lose along SE Atlantic coast.
..
A four-year study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found future sea rise could cause up to $24 billion in damages yearly from storm surge flooding alone.

Source: [usf.edu] (https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/environment/2022-08-31/as-storm-flooding-worsens-federal-report-finds-florida-has-the-most-to-lose-along-se-atlantic-coast)

The stupid troll will now be very very angry while pretending it isn’t.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:6

Hilarious, nothing you posted refuted ANYTHING.

Since you can’t parse words, apparently, “which no, have not been particularly worse lately” is hurricanes, not flooding. Hurricanes are not any worse than normal, which is just important to note cuz that’s something you guys say every time a particularly bad one comes by, which happens at about the same (or even below) the normal rate lately.

Then you post a bunch of alarmist gobbledygook that has nothing to do with anything.

increasingly unable to handle flood waters worsened by sea level rise and development, is getting a long overdue update.

Development maybe, overdue, maybe, sea-level rise no. Sea level has risen 6 to 8 inches the last century.

Sea levels around Florida are rising as much as 1 inch every 3 years

“Local sea level rise” is not a thing, unless you’re talking about the Caspian sea or something (probably should call it “Ocean Level”). Sea level rises the same, everywhere, basically by definition. The sea level doesn’t change any differently for Florida than anywhere else. What they mean is that bit of ground is sinking. Add in actual sea level rise (basically miniscule on a year to year basis) and the ground is sinking….1 inch every 3 years. Actual scientific papers will use terms like

tidal flooding in some areas of the state has increased 352% since 2000

Yeah, some areas. Some areas it could be going down (not really, almost all of Florida is eroding) More concrete things like dredging a channel also dramatically affect flooding.

A four-year study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found future sea rise could cause up to $24 billion in damages yearly from storm surge flooding alone.

“Could” and also almost all of that is due to increased developement.

Of course I’m angry, that was nonsensical bullshit that wasted my time. You’re the fucking troll.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

Good news is that if ALL the ice melted (unlikely) it would only raise sea levels 10 feet.

Which would wipe out most of Florida and a significant portion of the Gulf coast. I mean, if you people are trying to deliberately kill off population centers full of your own, you’re doing one hell of a job promoting it.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4

It’s not like it happens in a day.

Maybe in the meantime, those states that are affected can pay for rebuilding their own shit year after year. I’d love to stop paying for rebuilding Florida after every hurricane when most of its residents are too dense to care about their increasing strength and frequency.

After all, if it’s no big deal, then by all means – pay for it your fucking selves.

Ditto for Texas – they can enjoy those snowstorms while they’re sitting in the dark for all I care. As long as I don’t have to pay for it.

Be as stupid as you want I say. And pay for it yourselves!

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:7

That is often claimed but not actually true, just another one of those fictions you liberals tell each other. It basically pretends any federal expenditure in a state goes to that state. It includes things like military bases and federal parks (which can have some down stream economic effects but not necessarily a lot) as well as spending money maintaining federal lands. Money that could be much more fairly described as going to the state would include various entitlements that conservatives were never in favor of, anyway.

Basically we all view ourselves as being dragged along by your dumb policies. Suffice to say if the Blue states and Red states divorced I think it would go a lot worse for the blue states.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

“That’s a lot of ignorance.”

Never claimed to be an expert, here’s some light reading for ya.

“Whereas weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates. To describe the climate of a place, we might say what the temperatures are like during different seasons, how windy it usually is, or how much rain or snow typically falls.”
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/weather-vs-climate

Ten Feet … LOL

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:

Gotta point out human greenhouse emissions are ~3% of the total. The typical envrio response is to say that 3% is leading to a slow buildup but the thing is the natural emissions are very stochastic (random, but it means a bit more) going up and down wildly (a good chunk of it is volcanic).

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:3

So it is really funny how little all the mainstream sites want to talk about this and the search engines downrank it, what you’ll find is a LOT of sites refuting this basic info while admitting it is true “Yes natural emissions dwarfs anthropogenic, but…” etc. And almost all of those refuse to publish the number.

Best I could find without spending all day at it is: https://grist.org/article/natural-emissions-dwarf-human-emissions/ , which yes, is a site trying to counter the argument, but at least they list the number:

Objection: According to the IPCC, 150 billion tonnes of carbon go into the atmosphere from natural processes every year. This is almost 30 times the amount of carbon humans emit. What difference can we make?

That’s 3.333%. Please note the error bars are pretty large, until a few years ago best we could say was >5% Also this particular figure is listing CO2 but it’s basically the same when you count methane and NO2

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James Burkhardt (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

From the summary of the article you cited:

It’s true that natural fluxes in the carbon cycle are much larger than anthropogenic emissions. But for roughly the last 10,000 years, until the industrial revolution, every gigatonne of carbon going into the atmosphere was balanced by one coming out.
What humans have done is alter one side of this cycle. We put approximately 6 gigatonnes of carbon into the air but, unlike nature, we are not taking any out.

We’ve added additional emissions, and have reduced the emission sinks in the environment, impacting the balance of natural emissions.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:5

You’re citing an argument, not the actual fact they’re making an argument about. Why? That doesn’t change the fact.

what you’ll find is a LOT of sites refuting this basic info while admitting it is true “Yes natural emissions dwarfs anthropogenic, but…” etc.

It’s like you missed that bit. Yes, this site is quoting the actual figure in order to argue against it. But that anthropogenic emissions are a tiny bit of the total is unassailable.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:7

That CO2 in the atmosphere has increased steadily since the industrial revolution

About 30%, but “steadily” is unclear.

that is a man made problem

Also unclear. Also, btw, the CO2 concentrations have not lined up well with human emissions. Both have gone up (US emissions have gone down the last few decades, btw) but there’s not a good correlation between the two.

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Toom1275 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Volcano CO2 emissions, according to published studies:

Ranging from 65,000,000-319,000,000 tons annually. There is as yet no published support* for claims underwater volcanoes produce vastly more

Human CO2 emissions, according to the EIA:

34,000,000,000 tons emitted worldwide annually.

*(I.E. “Underwater volcanoes produce much more than humanity” remains propaganda and opinion, not actual fact)

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:5

That is not a citation, at all. Also your answer tells me you just don’t understand the question, at all.

Again, “Volcanic”!=”Volcanoes” Not even underwater volcanoes. Just pretend I said “Geothermic”, it will be a lot easier for you.

*(I.E. “Underwater volcanoes produce much more than humanity” remains propaganda and opinion, not actual fact)

I mean, they probably do, actually, but that is not at all what I claimed. (nor do I know specifically)

You’re an idiot who doesn’t even understand the terms being used, and somehow you want to make that my problem.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:4

have eradcated [sic] natural emission sinks.

No we haven’t. You’re about to get real emotional about this, and make arguments you don’t understand unanchored by facts.

There’s no magical 1:1 relationship between inputs and outputs barring human activity. Co2 ppm has been relatively flat last 10k years but that’s also nothing in geologic time, it goes up and down all the time. What there is are a million feedback loops (which we really don’t understand all that well, btw) going in different directions and with different response curves, but the system seems largely self-correcting. CO2 goes up and plants really do grow better which leads to more sequestration, for one example. Water also absorbs some which generates carbonic acid (same as your soda) for a less great example. Modelling all that is hell tho.

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Strawb (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

There’s actually very little reason to think that’s true

It’s quite the opposite. There’s pretty much only reasons to think that it’s true:

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/more-999-studies-agree-humans-caused-climate-change

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/are-humans-causing-or-contributing-global-warming

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4

“You’re citing propaganda and opinion pieces, not actual fact and figures.
This stuff is a religion for you guys, not science.”

Well .. isn’t everything propaganda and opinion?
What is religion anyway, just a cult.
Science does not present the typical traits of a cult.
You are wrong.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Science does not present the typical traits of a cult.

People screaming about global warming, calling anyone who points out inconvenient facts a “denier” (heretics) and refusing to contemplate evidence that their (extremely messy) calculations sure seems like a cult. It’s definitely not science.

So yes, in a weird way, I agree with you.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6

“People screaming”

I see your point, but that particular portion of society is not what I intended to address in my reference to the field of Science. My intent was that scientists, those who have the knowledge and experience in a particular field, do not exhibit the typical traits of a cult. I suppose there are probably a few that do – idk.

Some people claim to be scientists, some may even have a degree, but that does not mean they are an expert in the field.

So, let’s just continue polluting, I guess that is what will happen.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Some of them are willing fools, like Matthew Bennett over here, who claims to have a physics degree but clearly doesn’t care about OUR citations and sources.

And when any of us point out how hypocritical, anti-science and whatnot he is, he ignores, gaslights, insults and otherwise acts like a beligerent asshole. Down to even threatening to shoot us at least once.

No, you don’t get to hide behind the joke excuse, Matthew. You carry water for white supremacists and Big Oil.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re:

I mean, that’s just dumb, oil is (mostly) fungible but of course some of it was sold in the US, probably most of it. Hell, the US has a huge chunk of refining capacity and a huge chunk of the gasoline consumers.

It also provides a lot of Wyoming’s jobs and is a huge part of the economy. Wtf are you even on about?

Typical techdirt reader in a nutshell.

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