Dan van Schaik wrote a fascinating article, The New Environmental Movement and Wildlife, in the latest Pond Boss magazine. I urge you to read it, brings up issues that are seldom discussed about the move to electric vehicles and what it would mean for wildlife & pond owners. Several car companies pledge to go all electric in the next decade or two, and the state of California seeks to ban sales of internal combustion vehicles in the 2030s. It's coming.

I enjoy political rants, but this isn't one of them. Van Schaik doesn't endorse or condemn any politician or political party, nor any policy. He simply wants land & pond owners to understand the environmental impacts of so many more right of ways that must be built for all the additional electric lines that will be required. It is a real eye opener.

One point I'd add is that because "green" energy, solar & wind, is inherently diffuse (not to mention intermittent) compared with nuclear or fossil fuels, it takes literally hundreds of times more land to supply the same energy. Such a large footprint means that solar & wind are normally located far away from where the power is most needed, as open land is too scarce & expensive near urban areas. Thus, even more right of ways and electric lines are needed than from more conventional sources.

This fragments natural wildlife areas, as Schaik details. But it also increases the risk of wildfires, as lines must run through vulnerable areas such as forests. Californians know all about this. When it gets windy, risk a wildfire or have the electricity cut off: Take your pick.

Again, I'm not trying to make a political statement here. Won't respond to Trump or Biden or partisan remarks. But I do agree with van Schaik that we need to be aware of the consequences of a move to EV & green energy. As an economist, I know every decision involves tradeoffs, costs as well as benefits, that must be weighed carefully.

Great Article ! anthropic's post is fine. Everyone needs to know the facts. No political or global warming threads or comments allowed by rule - please don't go there but do go read the article.

Eric, I remember your interesting PB article re the possible implications of climate change for pond owners. Even though I didn't share all your concerns, I do agree it is important to think ahead of what might be coming down the road and how to prepare.

Whether droughts, heat, or cold, it seems to me that maybe pondmeisters should focus more on depth, not just surface acreage. Drought & heat benefits are obvious: Less evaporation per gallon retained, more thermal refuge. As for cold, during the Big Chill a couple months ago my goose population rose from 2 to 24, as my pond was deep enough not to freeze over, unlike most others. Also, I did not have a fish kill, so far as I'm aware. If more extreme weather is ahead, depth becomes increasingly important.

Most pond fish species present today have survived for millions of years and through several natural climate changes. The history of fish through genetics is a fascinating subject. Geologists have a good understanding of those type things and a much better perspective on the history of Earth.

The song, 'Red Barchetta,' by Rush comes to mind.

I happen to have a red sports car stored in a barn right now.

My big V-8 is Platinum metallic, but it is not in the barn, it's in the garage and I plan to take it out in a few for a ride.

About the electrical grid and EV's, This is a topic I know enough about to get into trouble, but here goes anyway. Our Grid's issues are not about capacity, their issues are about maintenance. Our grid can handle adding the approximately 1/3 more energy through it, and our current grid can be upgraded to higher capacities without adding "more lines". Our grid's issues are a balance between maintenance costs and profits. Adding Solar to homes actually lowers the grid requirements. Adding smart charging EV's to our grid allows those EV's to be charged when demand is low which will not add to the requirements for additional lines. Now for the benefits of adding EV's to the grid. They can be standby energy for homes during grid outages. They can level the system spikes and actually reduce the requirements for additional lines needed for increased demands spikes. It all depends on how you setup your grid and the EV charging routines.

I do agree adding solar to buildings must be done correctly or you will cause additional problems for us all. Large field Solar systems are another topic and should be addressed separately.

Now it's time to turn some reformed dinosaur juice into noise, but only after a proper warmup and some stretching.

Texas already spent $6 billion to run several 345 kV transmission lines to far west Texas wind farms (where the wind usually blows) and to interconnect all the major load centers to the new lines and to re-enforce load center interconnections. For all the new wind farms on the gulf coast (colonizing Kennedy county), new transmission lines need only run to the near load centers (such as Alice, Brownsville and Kingsville) to inter-connect with major existing transmission. All together producing about twenty thousand megawatts (equal to eight 2,500 mW two unit nuclear plants), until all froze over in mid-February.

Transmission lines don't start forest fires unless...maintenance clearing of tree growth is prohibited or lines are so overloaded they heat up and extend down into the trees (such as moving thousands of megawatts through a line designed for 600 megawatts). Both causes can work together (tall trees and sagging overloaded lines) and are common occurrences in the Western and Eastern grids where power is often moved over thousands of miles.

Exactly my, and van Schaik's, point. Mass EV means huge increases in electric demand, which for solar & wind means remote locations & hence very long transmission lines & right of ways.

The investor in me sees opportunities in home generators, as otherwise cars cannot be recharged during outages. For a prospective land or pond owner, I'd advise care be taken to stay away from probable transmission line routes. As in California, once many large right of ways begin to fragment wildlife along thousands of miles, environmentalists will insist on minimal tree clearing & disruption.

I have a transmission line on my property. It was there when I bought the place over 40 years ago. The transmission line had kept the place on the market for a long time with no interest/takers. It's about 3/4 miles from the house and I saw it as a good place to spot deer crossing it. Now, I keep a corn feeder filled there to have year around hog hunting.

Back then I paid $415 per acre for 133 acres of totally junk land. Now worth, according to a realtor buddy, between $4,500 to $5,000 per acre. That line hasn't done much damage to it.

A trend you will likely see that will offset some grid demand is more working from home... which in turn will get people thinking hard about home solar and charging the EV from your own solar juice and less driving. At least, that is what we are thinking. Our next commuter vehicle will be an EV to replace my wife's aging Subaru. My plan is to solarize the house with some form of local storage for dealing with blackouts when they invariably occur. I just need to do this after the kitchen re-do or I will be solarizing my dog house.

(Look at Stor-En for flow batteries, cool stuff) https://www.storen.tech/ working with them on the power conversion part.

The stinky part is I really need a truck, but generally I preferred to retire than have a truck, so a Subaru it is. When EV comes around as a primary style of transportation, trucks are going to be penalized even further, putting them out of reach for mere mortals. An EV truck will be good for a fleet vehicle as they are not typically putting a zillion miles on them, but for a general purpose vehicle they will not be a good choice.

One thing that burns my butt is the lack of progress on Thorium reactors. Enough energy contained in already mined Thorium to run our country for a century or more yet we are going after unreliable energy sources that require quite a bit of raw materials per kilowatt to produce.

Bought a new Dodge 2500 4x4 base-trim at the end of 2019 just before the lockdown. Not even 5,000 miles on it yet, but need to do an oil change just because of the time that has past. Had been without a pickup for over a decade and wanted to have one again since they are so handy. Has a 6.4L Hemi which has plenty of power for me since I do not routinely pull a trailer. Gets about the same mileage as my modified Miata and better mileage that our 12+ year-old Jeep and 3/4-ton Ford cargo van. Cannot even buy a new full-size truck with a manual transmission anymore, so the Miata and Jeep have to give me my shifting fix. if I ever buy a UTV, I will look at electric for the simplicity and low noise level. Just cannot justify the cost of a UTV as long as the Jeep keeps running.

It's certainly an interesting article, and while D.V.S. (author) plays it somewhat neutral, it seems he's not really in favor of the 'green' plans.

While science and scientists have to 'reach for the stars,' or 'aim high,' or push the envelopes, or however you want to coin it, I can never seem to get past viewing life through a 'ying and yang' perspective, or 'good and bad.'

These may be old canards, but I'm not sure they've ever been proven wrong: ....you can't create something from nothing; no free lunches; you have to take the good with the bad; rob Peter to pay Paul, etc. etc.

I remember forty years ago, seven years into my engineering career, we are about to be able to afford our first house. Land across the Texas hill country had fallen to $400 an acre. ( Condos at Port Aransas, with the developers/operator/managements financially broke, were selling for forty grand.) Interest rates at 13% (my mother was getting 13% on tax exempt bonds!). Cash was king, but we had only the savings for a down payment for a house. Twenty years later I'm listening to this fella at the bar explaining how he just bought forty acres for $4,000 each. My lesson growing up: in the fifties, just about everyone we knew was buying land on the outer loop, a one lane road then, but "it will become priceless commercial property very soon." Thing is, that didn't happen until the nineties.

Similar here, there is a housing shortage driving the price of things through the roof quickly. My house and land went from $190K three years ago to $285K

Yikes. Wondering what the next few years hold as there is no sign of housing improvement since materials costs are through the roof.

We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

I starting to think about disassembling and selling parts of our 36 year old house, to replace it with something smaller and more modern for people seventy years old.

Any info on pricing?

Keep in mind the electric vehicles are full of batteries from which stored energy can be withdrawn back into the grid at the charging stations. Pull in to work, hook up to the charger, go online and set your leaving time. But of course, in our February freeze with no power, you would have found your battery dead because its power was sold at $9 per kilo-watthour.

You have a deviously suspicious mind, Sir.