Electrical demand with more EVs on the road. Is there enough power supply for future growth?

[Nick Gerteis]

I disagree, this video is lunacy. We've been able to keep up and exponentially increase electric output due to the "fossil fuel" power plants. If you outlaw those and rely and on "green" power plants it will not scale, not without the homeowner putting huge skin in the game to charge at home via solar. California is the perfect example of this failed experiment, highest adoption rate of EV's but trying to get a new power plant built is impossible. So bottom line, can we scale electricity usage?.?.?.? yes, if we build more fossil fuel power plants or people move to rural areas where solar is easier to rollout on a per user basis.

Please stop with the pointless fear mongering already. Fossil and nuclear are dead ends now that we have the tech to cheaply and cleanly produce all the electricity we need and then some. Game is already over.

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[Nick Gerteis]

Nuclear is a great option. Of course the big prize is nuclear fusion. But NG can not go. Wind and solar need 100% backup, or the grid will fail. There is no storage, so if the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing there would be no energy produced in real time and so no energy available. It's a very simple concept, but one that not a lot of people realize.

You can point to the two or three grid-scale battery facilities and say that's the solution, but they don't exist right now in 99.9% of the market. Even if they did, with the number you would have to build and a battery life span of 15 years, how green is that?

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for renewables. I have solar on my roof. I'm buying an electric truck. I support the progress, but we ain't there yet. Not even close. All the renewables are redundant at this point, because you have to have 100% backup in order to have a stable grid.

Please stop with the pointless fear mongering already. Fossil and nuclear are dead ends now that we have the tech to cheaply and cleanly produce all the electricity we need and then some. Game is already over. Storage will be solved by everyone having a 100kWh battery pack sitting in the driveway or work parking lot unused 23 hours per day. Ford is the real pioneer here with their bidirectional charging. Problem solved.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Just spin your wind turbines faster Im sure it'll work out! Bottom line is there is there still a place for fossil fuel powered vehicles and/or power plants. If you like EV's that much then put your own money into Solar. If not you are just diverting your emissions from Gas stations and tailpipes to "fossil fueled" powered power plants.

Yawn…..same boring old myopia warmed up….nobody is buying it anymore.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Yeah? Ask Germany how that's going for them this winter. Yeah, it will be solved. It just hasn't yet. Watch Europe.

 

[luebri]

Yawn…..same boring old myopia warmed up….nobody is buying it anymore.

You got receipts for your commentary? I do...

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Yeah? Ask Germany how that's going for them this winter. Yeah, it will be solved. It just hasn't yet. Watch Europe.

Glad to see you’re agreeing with me that it will be solved. Nothing wrong with cleaner, cheaper energy! And yes, you’re right in that we are only at the beginning of the process. We’re lucky enough to do it at the pace we choose instead of being forced by a bully to do it all at once, like Europe.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

You got receipts for your commentary? I do...

Yes, you’re absolutely correct. Today. That’s why I said “myopia”: you act as though today’s grid was impossible to improve. But with a reasonable amount of money and political will we’ll build up the grid, shift generating capacity from FF to RE, and solve intermittency with all our shiny new batteries that are rolling out at the same time. That’s what OP was concerned about, and it will all work out beautifully.

 

[ExCivilian]

I was in LA area in December 2000 for my sister's wedding. At that time there were widespread rolling blackouts that couldn't possibly be blamed on EVs and heatwave increasing AC use.

That was Enron...do you not know this history?

And as far as "mismanagement" was concerned, the Enron fiasco was traced back to Pete Wilson (R) deregulating the market.

 

[shutterbug]

That was Enron...do you not know this history?

I also visited sometime around January 2010. Experienced a major outage. At that point CA had 8 years to fix whatever shenanigans Enron was guilty of.

And as far as "mismanagement" was concerned, the Enron fiasco was traced back to Pete Wilson (R) deregulating the market.

In December 2000, Pete Wilson was out of office for almost 2 years. Today, Pete Wilson has been out of office for 23 years. Yet, CA electricity grid is still craptacular.

 

[ExCivilian]

I also visited sometime around January 2010. Experienced a major outage. At that point CA had 8 years to fix whatever shenanigans Enron was guilty of.


In December 2000, Pete Wilson was out of office for almost 2 years. Today, Pete Wilson has been out of office for 23 years. Yet, CA electricity grid is still craptacular.

If you want to keep talking out your ass that's fine with me but it doesn't help that you don't seem to have a basic grasp of the history of the thing you're whining about.

The outages ten years ago were because two nuclear power plants suddenly went offline that impacted CA, AZ, and Mexico. The best part was that this time it was caused by...you guys:

"The outage was probably caused by an employee removing a piece of monitoring equipment that was causing problems at a power substation in southwest Arizona, officials said.

The power loss should have been limited to the Yuma, Arizona, area. The power company, Arizona Public Service, was investigating why the outage had not been contained."

Mismanagement indeed

 

[Theo1000]

So as we speak I'm sitting here in the midwest in a voluntary 3 hour Demand response with my A/C thermostat off by utility. And it is 84f outside but apparently some of the thermal/nuke plants are running low on water. Don't fully understand it

To be honest I don't mind. Some outage tolerance is needed to keep rates low. Give me cheap power, don't mind a few hours of outages here and there. Higher the outage tolerance lower your rates. At my cabin on lake days of outages are not unusual. Just roll with it....

WRT EV this is actually by plan folks. EV's can demand respond. You can shift charging, something A/C, lighting, etc can not do. Don't understand the hoo haa and heated commentary on a system working how it should. Always the plan for EV's to demand respond.

IIRC the CCS-1 and CCS-2 standard has the ability for utilities to turn of EV's through the EVSE based on some measures. It also Ahem! has the ability to feed the grid V2G, but that is down the road obviously. I think the FCSP has this software embedded as well. So eventually the more EV's the more stable the grid gets.

 

[jefro]

The CA problem started with not in my backyard along with down with nukes.

Reports of the US grid show many areas are at risk still.

 

[shutterbug]

f you want to keep talking out your ass that's fine with me but it doesn't help that you don't seem to have a basic grasp of the history of the thing you're whining about.

Fine, if you think that CA electric grid is managed well, I'm not even going to try convincing you. All I know, is that in nearly 30 years living in AZ, I had 2 power outages (both during major storms). By way of comparison my sister living in LA area seems to have them every 2-3 months.

The outages ten years ago were because two nuclear power plants suddenly went offline that impacted CA, AZ, and Mexico. The best part was that this time it was caused by...you guys

Unless something changed in the last few minutes, APS only operates a single nuclear power station. But hey, CA's electric grid is perfect, so all these outages are imaginary and someone else's fault

 

[jefro]

I read the manual for my evse and it said something like power company could disable it or some such but not heard of any real life instances where it happened.

Yes, I too would prefer lower bill and to that end accept some less than perfect supply.

I mean really, turning off the electric hot water heater can't be terrible. Smelly maybe.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

https://news.yahoo.com/heat-wave-puts-california-fossil-195242569.html

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