California’s Electric Vehicle Dream Has A Major Problem: No

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

?I had my numbers stand ALONE.  75GW for 10 hours straight charging vehicles. Irregardless of when + additional standard load on grid.  Grid usage at night is still ~50% of peak.  Lets simple math 25GW + 75GW = 100GW and grid currently MAXED at 50GW... Gee.... hrmm... seems like 2X to me... Thankfully most power lines can have their voltage doubled.  Of course all transformers must be replaced and a lot of lines must be upgraded, but the grid itself is doable.  That is simple stuff.  Coming up with an additional ~1TWh at night...  every night irregardless if the sun/wind has been shining/blowing for the past week is THE problem. 

Oh yea, My numbers are way too low.  Trucking is at least 8X higher consumption than TESLA 3/Y.... https://insideevs.com/news/332353/tesla-semi-truck-battery-is-how-big/  They get 0.5mi/KWh and they are comparing to a perfect diesel truck which currently does not exist.  So, that 0.5mi/KWh... is actually lower.

PS: Did anyone else notice that TESLA has essentially given up on grid storage with their new batteries and instead say LiFePo.  This is inline with what everyone is saying on the TESLA forums regarding the new TESLA batteries.  Their capacity degrades much faster than previous packs.  This makes sense as TESLA has cut the amount of Cobalt in their batteries significantly.  We shall see what happens with their new Anode/Cathode + waterless electrolyte.  Hrmm which makes one think, what happens when LiFePo gets waterless electrolyte?  Does this mean its #1 drawback(can't be charged under 0C disappears? and weight decreases?)  If this is the case, then it becomes fairly obvious that the battery of the future is LiFePo, not NMS(Nickel metal silicone other than the fact that the latest LiFePo have a 25% energy density disadvantage to Latest TESLA cells. 

EDIT: PPS: LiFePo also have a nice 4X longer life than NMC...

Lets look at light vehicles

15.1 million in California

Average mileage per vehicle - 12000 miles PA

Fuel economy 3 miles / kwh (conservative side)

60 TWH

Thats about 7 GW of extra generating capacity on a 24/7 basis

So about 8GW from Nukes assume 90% online availability

CCGT at 60% online 11.7GW of extra gas CCGT

 

if California primarily utilised off grid CCGT for Ev charging mixed in with some extra solar and wind it could go all electric as far as light vehicles go with <10GW of extra CCGT capacity. 

Cover half the dead Salton Sea in solar panels and that will give California  90-100Twh a year. 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by NickW

[Bob D + 562]

14 hours ago, Wombat said:

Ever heard of pumped Hydro? Hydrogen cars?

They don't exist Wombat!

[Bob D + 562]

20 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

But they aren't! Even in red states that suffer hurricanes. It always makes me laugh when i see one of the recurring posts about what are EV's going to do when there is no electricity when the question is just as much what does an ICE do when there is no electricity, as the gas stations shut down in a black out!

When a hurricane approaches Texas I have four 5 gal no-ethanol gas ready for the generator and a full tank of gas in both cars.  I can get far away from landfall if I need to.  What's the range of the EV??

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

7 hours ago, Bob D said:

When a hurricane approaches Texas I have four 5 gal no-ethanol gas ready for the generator and a full tank of gas in both cars.  I can get far away from landfall if I need to.  What's the range of the EV??

Don't fret, you will be fleeing all those climate change induced hurricanes in your 500 mile Texas made Cybertruck in just a few years.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[Wombat + 1,028]

13 hours ago, Bob D said:

They don't exist Wombat!

Pumped hydro, fuelled by coal, has existed in the US and Australia for over 50 years. Take a Taxi in South Korea, and it will be H2 powered. Japanese taxis too. Australia even planning on building H2-powered tractors.

https://www.anyauto.com.au/hydrogen-cars-tractors-and-taxis-to-be-built-in-australia/#:~:text=Hydrogen Cars Tractors and Taxis to be built,from a plant at Port Kembla by 2025.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

10 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Don't fret, you will be fleeing all those climate change induced hurricanes in your 500 mile Texas made Cybertruck in just a few years.

I see what you mean.  Brace yourself, @Bob D!  You probably should build on higher ground as well.

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change Indicators: Tropical Cyclone Activity  

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

9 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

I see what you mean.  Brace yourself, @Bob D!  You probably should build on higher ground as well.

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change Indicators: Tropical Cyclone Activity  

 

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is an ongoing tropical cyclone season which has featured tropical cyclone formation at an unprecedented rate. So far, it has featured a total of 25 tropical or subtropical cyclones, 24 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes.^{[nb 1]} With 24 named storms, it is the second most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, behind only the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Of those 24 named storms, 9 made landfall in the contiguous United States, which ties the record from 1916. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 10/3/2020 at 12:01 PM, Jay McKinsey said:

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is an ongoing tropical cyclone season which has featured tropical cyclone formation at an unprecedented rate. So far, it has featured a total of 25 tropical or subtropical cyclones, 24 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes.^{[nb 1]} With 24 named storms, it is the second most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, behind only the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Of those 24 named storms, 9 made landfall in the contiguous United States, which ties the record from 1916. 

They didn't fly Jenny's out into the gulf in 1916 looking for storms. Given the lower population, they didn't even know there were hurricanes hitting, or they just called them storms. The much hyped climate change hurricane watch has been a long term embarrassment to us AGW crowd. As for this one year, I'll use the AGW argument back at you, that weather /= climate. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 10/2/2020 at 5:46 PM, Jay McKinsey said:

Don't fret, you will be fleeing all those climate change induced hurricanes in your 500 mile Texas made Cybertruck in just a few years.

Put your generator and gasoline in back of the Cybertruck. 😊

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

On 9/30/2020 at 8:51 PM, Dan Clemmensen said:

I stated in my initial post that I accepted the capacity expansion number in the original article, which was 25%. My argument, however, is that while the average capacity will indeed go up by 25%, the peak load will not go up by much at all due to EVs. The peak load in California will go up by some serious percentage due to increased use of air conditioning over this same period, because the hottest day of the year keeps getting hotter, but that's another story. Yes, I do know how many cars need to be plugged in simultaneously: all of them. Upper bound: each EV must have two chargers, one at home and one at work. There are about 33 million registered motor vehicles in CA The effort to add all of those chargers is fully distributed amongst all of California's electricians, and it will cost approximately $1000.00 per charger, or $2000.00 per EV on the highway. Each year, the number of new chargers will be two times the number of new EVs. However, the number of new chargers does not affect the total energy required by these EVs, which remains at 9 KWh/day per EV on average. EVs that charge at work do not contribute to peak load. EVs that charge at home after midnight do not contribute to peak load. The tiny percentage of EVs that must charge during peak hours will have a negligible effect. To add 60 million chargers in 15 years, we need 4 million a year. There are 63,000 electricians in California. Each electrician will need to install about 65 chargers each year: less than two per week.  In actual practice, of course, most non-home installations will occur in large clusters, not one-off, and most home chargers do not need an electrician and/or will be done in conjunction with other electrical work.

A number of 30 million vehicles for a state population of 39 million is of course ludicrous. We do have that many vehicles, but that is more than one per driver, which means that the average miles per year per vehicle is less than the number I used of 15,000 mi/yr, and the number of chargers is also far overstated. I was just trying to place an upper bound on the problem.

Well said.

On that note, people forget that a standard 120V outlet is more than sufficient for most driving needs, and the vast majority of people will not need to charge at work. I.e. I'd estimate 80-90% of EVs will not require charger installation.

Which raises another point: one of the original objections to EVs was the lack of charging infrastructure. Sure, you need charging infrastructure for long trips - but how much driving is long trips? Most of us already have all the charging infrastructure we need right at home; what remains to be built is a pittance. It's so cheap, in fact, that a startup automotive company (Tesla) accomplished it solo. Hardly seems like an obstacle for an industry consortium, much less the combined resources of a developed nation.

Why do we keep making mountains out of mole hills?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

Well said.

On that note, people forget that a standard 120V outlet is more than sufficient for most driving needs, and the vast majority of people will not need to charge at work. I.e. I'd estimate 80-90% of EVs will not require charger installation.

Which raises another point: one of the original objections to EVs was the lack of charging infrastructure. Sure, you need charging infrastructure for long trips - but how much driving is long trips? Most of us already have all the charging infrastructure we need right at home; what remains to be built is a pittance. It's so cheap, in fact, that a startup automotive company (Tesla) accomplished it solo. Hardly seems like an obstacle for an industry consortium, much less the combined resources of a developed nation.

Why do we keep making mountains out of mole hills?

We still need to have redundancy in supply due to unforeseen problems. The redundancy is best handled with natural gas plants, not expensive batteries which depend on wind or sunlight. A lack of sunlight is possible from a meteorite strike, volcano eruptions, etc. I am also wondering about the effect of dust on the motors in wind turbines. 

Even now, we have to worry about electrical outages, lets not underestimate the effect of electric cars. I actually think it will be a long term slow growth to adoption of EVs but it will be fun to watch. 

 

See https://www.statista.com/statistics/744946/us-electric-vehicle-market-growth/

Electric vehicles: U.S. market growth 2018 & 2026

Published by I. Wagner, Aug 22, 2019 (not related to me).

 Electric vehicles are projected to account for 7.6 percent of the market in 2026, up from just 1.2 percent in 2018. Overall, American motorists bought some 17.2 million light vehicles in 2018.
 

 Tesla sparks sales growth

  Tesla accounted for the majority of plug-in electric vehicles sold in the United States in 2018. As of now, Tesla is leading the race towards the electrification of transport in the United States. Here, the California-based carmaker reported 2018 sales nearing 140,000 units of its most recent model addition, the Model 3. It was introduced in July 2017 at a starting price of 35,000 U.S. dollars and has become Tesla’s most successful model so far. Overall, consumers in the U.S. bought 191,627 Tesla-badged vehicles in 2018.
 

 The great brand divide

  The Tesla brand exerts such dominance in the market that it plays in a league of its own. Even though there are other brands competing with Tesla globally, it looks like they do not stand a chance to bite into Tesla’s U.S. market share. U.S. car shoppers only bought 18,019 Chevrolet-badged and just 14,715 Nissan-badged battery electric vehicles in 2018.

Edited October 20, 2020 by ronwagn
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