Charge Me up

By South Jersey Times Letters Have President Joe Biden and his supporters thought through his plan to combat global warming. I’d call it “Operation Warp Pedal Faster.” I am not going to criticize Biden himself, but I will question “why.” His policy is to do away with or minimize fossil-fueled powered vehicles over time and change to electric ones. Perhaps, ironically, Philadelphia-based Curtis Publishing used electric trucks to deliver the Saturday Evening Post for more than 50 years starting in 2012. Campaigns to end climate change ignore that China is still building coal-fired power plants at a quicker pace than we are building nuclear ones. Their cooling towers emit water vapor, not carbon dioxide. Both have risks, but less atmospheric damage is done by the nuclear plants. U.S. “acid rain” impact purportedly involves fossil-fuel emissions from as far away as Asia and Europe. Yes, we know about Chernobyl. But, why are we not spending more research money on safer generation alternatives? With electric vehicles, the biggest problems are shortening charging times and increasing distance range, especially if there wide power outages. Instead of buying gold for retirement savings, buy copper. Copper wire transports power to heat your home and charge your batteries — and copper makes pennies, which you’ll need unless you have jars full. We could soon hear this on an airline flight if climate-change restrictions go too far: “This is your captain speaking: In compliance with the FAA directive, we need 50 volunteers to pedal the generators for diversion to Pittsburgh because Atlantic City is under a severe weather alert.” Gerald Keer, Turnersville