New $4B Panasonic Electric Vehicle Battery Factory Requires So Much Power That the Facility Will Need Its Own Coal Plant to Run

A coal-fired power plant in Kansas that was slated for closure will remain open after all to provide needed power for, wait for it: a new electric vehicle (EV) battery factory producing “clean” energy storage products.

In accordance with the Biden regime’s ongoing efforts to force all Americans into an EV, Panasonic has built a $4 billion EV battery factory in the small Kansas City exurb of De Soto.

Local media reports state that the factory will require anywhere from 200 to 250 megawatts of electricity to function. This is roughly the amount of power needed to keep the lights on in a small city.

On track to receive a whopping $6.8 billion from fake president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Panasonic is proving once again that in order to create “clean” energy, you have to burn a lot of “dirty” energy, rendering it a pointless endeavor.

The amount of energy the new Panasonic EV battery facility needs is so high, in fact, that a representative from Evergy, the public utility serving the factory, testified before the Kansas City Corporation Commission that there are serious “near-term challenges from a resource adequacy perspective.”

Put another way, the Panasonic EV battery factory in De Soto is an energy hog of epic proportions. As such, Evergy says it will have to continue burning coal at a nearby power plant in Lawrence that was previously slated to eventually transition to natural gas production.

Environmentalists furious that coal plant will have to remain open to produce Panasonic’s EV batteries

As we have been telling you, there is nothing “clean” about producing “green” energy products like EV batteries. In fact, it actually takes a much greater toll on the environment to produce EV batteries and other EV components than it does to continue building and using traditional gas-powered vehicles.

“A 15-pound lithium-ion battery holds about the same amount of energy as a pound of oil. To make that battery requires 7,000 pounds of rock and dirt to get the minerals that go into that battery,” reports Cowboy State Daily. “The average EV battery weighs around 1,000 pounds.”

“All of that mining and factory processing produces a lot more carbon dioxide emissions than a gas-powered car, so EVs have to be driven around 50,000 to 60,000 miles before there’s a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.”

In other words, as increasingly more EV battery and other EV product factories get built across the U.S. to accommodate the Biden regime’s “green” pipe dream, the environment will become more and more destroyed, which has left many environmentalists feeling betrayed as they recoil in fury.

Testifying before federal lawmakers and members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C., recently was American Coal Council CEO Emily Arthun, who spelled it all out with clarity.

“I met with senators and representatives who understand that we’re going to need coal for far longer than people are talking about,” Arthun said, explaining that the “green” energy industry requires massive amounts of “dirty” energy to stay afloat.

“People are starting to understand that energy needs are increasing, and these premature [coal-fired power plant] closures are a liability.”

Rep. Cyrus Western (R-Wyo.) said much the same to Cowboy State Daily, stating that “kilowatts don’t just fall out of the sky.”

“That electricity has got to come from somewhere,” he said. “It’s not going to come from solar farms and wind turbines.”