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

[SmokingtheMeats]

I'm sorry I started this mess. It was never my intention.

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[MM in SouthTX]

I'm sorry I started this mess. It was never my intention.

Lol. The thing about the internet…we are all free to walk away at any time. Some tough realities being parsed out here though. I think I am correct that oil and gas still equals power, but I am open to being proven wrong. I actually would like to be proven wrong.

 

[shutterbug]

Lived in CA my whole life, 38 years. Never had a power outage not caused by weather taking down a poll and even then it was maybe just 2 hours.

My internet goes out more than my power by a factor of like 100.

" Fine, if you think that CA electric grid is managed well, I'm not even going to try convincing you"

 

[gorwell]

" Fine, if you think that CA electric grid is managed well, I'm not even going to try convincing you"

Where I live the grid is managed very well

SMUD > https://www.smud.org/

Community owned, and their headquarters are down the street from me and they have free EV charging powered by Solar I siphon off of sometimes

It's not part of CAISO, which manages most of the state.

It's under BANC > http://www.thebanc.org/

Little map for you:

 

[cvalue13]

What exactly will heat their homes this winter? What will run their factories when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? How would adding more renewable energy help answer the last two questions?

again, I don’t understand the point.

the issue for Europe, is that they have been too dependent on requiring too many hydrocarbons from Moscow.

The facts that their homes will not be heated, etc., is not the fault of renewables/alternative feedstock sources. The fault is in Moscow.

The question then becomes, how could they have minimized that pain inflicted upon them by Moscow? And the answer is multifaceted (including sourcing hydrocarbons from elsewhere), but includes partly the obvious: (A) reducing energy demand, and (B) increasing availability of non-hydrocarbon feedstocks

To frame this as though the lack of energy alternatives in Europe is the fault of alternative feedstocks … very strange.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

again, I don’t understand the point.

the issue for Europe, is that they have been too dependent on requiring too many hydrocarbons from Moscow.

The facts that their homes will not be heated, etc., is not the fault of renewables/alternative feedstock sources. The fault is in Moscow.

The question then becomes, how could they have minimized that pain inflicted upon them by Moscow? And the answer is multifaceted (including sourcing hydrocarbons from elsewhere), but includes partly the obvious: (A) reducing energy demand, and (B) increasing availability of non-hydrocarbon feedstocks

To frame this as though the lack of energy alternatives in Europe is the fault of alternative feedstocks … very strange.

OK, I see what you are saying. What I’m saying is that more renewables will make the problem worse. Renewables are unreliable. At least we agree that more hydrocarbon energy sources makes people safer from evil dictators.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

again, I don’t understand the point.

the issue for Europe, is that they have been too dependent on requiring too many hydrocarbons from Moscow.

The facts that their homes will not be heated, etc., is not the fault of renewables/alternative feedstock sources. The fault is in Moscow.

The question then becomes, how could they have minimized that pain inflicted upon them by Moscow? And the answer is multifaceted (including sourcing hydrocarbons from elsewhere), but includes partly the obvious: (A) reducing energy demand, and (B) increasing availability of non-hydrocarbon feedstocks

To frame this as though the lack of energy alternatives in Europe is the fault of alternative feedstocks … very strange.

Short term issue, lesson learned, one year pain, problem solved, Putin spanked, Trump vindicated, all is good, world a better place except for the Ukrainian dead and injured (and Russian military pawns and relatives, other collateral damage, but hard to have sympathy for enablers). This winter, more parkas and blankets. Anyone who freezes is a fool or has a bad family.

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

What exactly will heat their homes this winter? What will run their factories when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? How would adding more renewable energy help answer the last two questions?

Europe has very few natural resources, especially for oil. England was once a massive producer of coal, and it once was the source of virtually all their electric power and heat.

Those days are gone, but so are the days of 100% reliance on foreign petroleum as the only source of energy. Although renewable resources are far from ready for prime-time, they're at least something that can't be taken away by a foreign government. That's reason alone for just about every country to look for alternatives.

It will take a long time, but at the wheels are in motion.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Europe has very few natural resources, especially for oil. England was once a massive producer of coal, and it once was the source of virtually all their electric power and heat.

Those days are gone, but so are the days of 100% reliance on foreign petroleum as the only source of energy. Although renewable resources are far from ready for prime-time, they're at least something that can't be taken away by a foreign government. That's reason alone for just about every country to look for alternatives.

It will take a long time, but at the wheels are in motion.

Agree 100%. Gotta keep trying. Just not reliable yet. Storage is the key. In the meantime, the more renewable energy you rely on, the more vulnerable you are.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

OK, I see what you are saying. What I’m saying is that more renewables will make the problem worse. Renewables are unreliable. At least we agree that more hydrocarbon energy sources makes people safer from evil dictators.

Renewables do not have to be, by definition less reliable. That's FOX News-talk. As a conservative (full-right) EV and solar panel owner, been there done that. With proper planning (which is so far rare) renewables can be done just as reliably as fossil fuel solutions. All it takes is the right investment and planning before fully committing to the renewable cut-over. Lots of ways to store energy for down times, and not just batteries. Pump water uphill on windy days into large reservoirs to use for generation when wind dies, etc. My power wall batteries are WAY better than the old 8-cylinder GM-powered generator behind the barn, and far less costly to maintain. In fact zero maintenance instead of $2k/yr plus parts ($8k last year). They are still a nonstarter some places - for example solar panels are silly in high latitudes because winters are dark when power is needed most, and batteries simply can;t handle months of storage. But in some of those places, lake parts of New Zealand and all of Iceland, renewables can still handle 100% of needs because there is a huge amount of geothermal (available to tap into almost anywhere in Iceland) and/or hydroelectric.

I find some renewable abhorrent, with near-tragic unintended consequences. In 2014 my wife and I walked teh Camino de Santiago across Spain, including walking across three mountain chains. As we approached the climbs we saw large new wind generators along the tops of teh ridges. Very impressive until we got up to them and heard the incessant sound, and saw them towering over ancient towns, with people who never understood what they were allowing until it was too late. Now they can never escape the constant whump, whump whump of those massive overhead turbine blades, destroying the bucolic environment that they and their ancestors enjoyed for centuries. Templar knights graveyards where we could hardly speak for the constant noise of renewable energy.

However, done right, with sensitivity and understanding of local opportunity, limitations, and priorities, renewables can be a good part of the power mix. Just not the only or final solution. And, as has been pointed out, the EV naysayers are having a field day with the current shortages, which have nothing to do with EV's - correlating the stupid new CA rules with CA's shortages, where there is nothing but an obvious dissonant message that can be exploited - but it is silly. We charge at night, as do most, and there is almost NO impact on peak grid demand from EV transition.

 

[ExCivilian]

Where I live the grid is managed very well

SMUD > https://www.smud.org/

Community owned, and their headquarters are down the street from me and they have free EV charging powered by Solar I siphon off of sometimes

It's not part of CAISO, which manages most of the state.

It's under BANC > http://www.thebanc.org/

Little map for you:

Already had this discussion with that person after pointing out the two examples they used of CA's "failed" grid were a result of external factors (first by Enron and then, ironically, by Arizona Public Service, which also happens to have been the largest outage CA has experienced in its history) that had little to nothing to do with CA specific.

That greyish color tucked down in the SE corner of the state is IID (Palm Springs, Imperial County, etc.), which is *also* co-operatively owned. Also like SMUD, the rates hover around .10-11 cents/kwh. Unlike SMUD, they don't have TOU so you guys still get hit during the summer peaks. Even then, though, it "only doubles" to roughly .18/kwh if I'm not mistaken.

Compare that to the .45-.60/kwh rates SD and LA counties pay. I have difficulty understanding how these so-called "public utilities," claiming to not profit from electron transmission, are charging their customers 2-3x the amount customers in our lesser developed desert regions (using tremendous amounts of energy 24/7 just to stay alive) are paying. Of course, anyone with solar panels knows the "wholesale market cost" of electrons because that's what we get paid at the end of the year during true-up: it's 2-3 cents per kilowatt!

Regardless, I don't know of any Californians who feel our entire state is perfectly managed but I'd hope people critiquing how things are being done acknowledge we also serve a little over a tenth of the nation's population. The US is the 2nd largest auto market in the world and CA is the largest auto market in the US--and the numbers aren't even close for either of those metrics compared to the next rung down the ladder.

Without even getting into what our, along with Europe's, shift to EVs from ICE means to the climate, this change grants the entire country and the world a lot more time to figure the mess we're finding ourselves in regarding the amount of fossil fuels available.

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

Agree 100%. Gotta keep trying. Just not reliable yet. Storage is the key. In the meantime, the more renewable energy you rely on, the more vulnerable you are.

The great thing about free markets is that the bigger the need to solve a problem, the bigger the opportunity for companies to compete to solve it.

As the demand for alternatives grows, so too will the number of options to meet the demand.

Right now, it's just a matter of scale. In the spirit of the original question, do we have enough power? If everyone switched at once, no, but I'm 100% sure that the pace is just fine and the marketplace for solutions will grow in proportion with the need.

 

[cvalue13]

OK, I see what you are saying. What I’m saying is that more renewables will make the problem worse. Renewables are unreliable. At least we agree that more hydrocarbon energy sources makes people safer from evil dictators.

Silly Europe! They could fix all this if only they’d pull “more hydrocarbon energy sources” out of thin air!

 

[cvalue13]

Short term issue, lesson learned, one year pain, problem solved, Putin spanked, Trump vindicated, all is good, world a better place except for the Ukrainian dead and injured (and Russian military pawns and relatives, other collateral damage, but hard to have sympathy for enablers). This winter, more parkas and blankets. Anyone who freezes is a fool or has a bad family.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Silly Europe! They could fix all this if only they’d pull “more hydrocarbon energy sources” out of thin air!

There were and are plenty. But they chose to do two really stupid things - over-focus on renewables without also planning for the collateral needs that come with them (grid leveling batteries, etc.,), and they increased reliance on Russian oil and gas despite wise advice to the contrary. THEY now see the folly and are scrambling - there are solutions, including more extraction in friendlier/safer places like North America. So no, it isn’t thin air. Contrary to the old 1980’s myth that hydrocarbons will run out in the near term, we now have more known reserves than at any time in history - in fact as far forward as we can see, with many more technologies and needed locations yet to explore. Fracking has been a godsend. A green warming alarmist’s nightmare - but a reality. The EU had choices, and made bad ones. Andrea Merkel was Exhibit A, but she had a lot of company. They now rue those decisions, and are quickly finding solutions, so yes, clearly there were and are sources, always were.

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