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The grid is what is being discussed - the removal of dams or adding solar or NG generation are really side issues.
Not true at all on the solar - I lived for years in the Northwest, the east side of the mountains has a lot of sun and open land if want to install solar.
According to this mostly bias (toward solar energy) site, Oregon is borderline marginal for sun hours per day to produce useable power.
A master electrician has little knowledge of the state of the grid - it is not something they deal with, their experienced opinion means very little. Might as well ask an auto mechanic about gas pipelines or refining capacity.
Oh, so my "master electrician" friends don't ever speak directly with the people from the local power company, and get any "inside information" from them? OK..............
You are never going to be able to argue that the electric grid can't support EVs. There are multiple ways to generate electricity all with well established histories. The historically cheapest way to generate electricity is Steam turbines powered by coal.
In 1985 production of electricity natural gas: 292 GWh | renewables 295 GWh | coal 1402 GWh | nuclear 384 GWh
In 2020 production of electricity natural gas: 1617 GWh | renewables 792 GWh | coal 774 GWh | nuclear 790 GWh
So while renewables have made massive increases in replacing coal, the clear winner has been natural gas.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but it produces half the greenhouse gases of coal. It is by far the easiest fuel to use to generate critical emergency power in times of extreme weather.
Inside of 3-4 years California will no longer generate any substantial electricity from coal or nuclear power. It will also remain a heavy user of energy from the Palo Verde nuclear plant (the largest in the nation) just over 100 miles from the California border in the Arizona desert. By law all electricity used in California (including that imported from other states) must come from renewables by 2045. The most difficult source to replace will be natural gas.
You are never going to be able to argue that the electric grid can't support EVs. There are multiple ways to generate electricity all with well established histories. The historically cheapest way to generate electricity is Steam turbines powered by coal.
In 1985 production of electricity natural gas: 292 GWh | renewables 295 GWh | coal 1402 GWh | nuclear 384 GWh
In 2020 production of electricity natural gas: 1617 GWh | renewables 792 GWh | coal 774 GWh | nuclear 790 GWh
So while renewables have made massive increases in replacing coal, the clear winner has been natural gas.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but it produces half the greenhouse gases of coal. It is by far the easiest fuel to use to generate critical emergency power in times of extreme weather.
Inside of 3-4 years California will no longer generate any substantial electricity from coal or nuclear power. It will also remain a heavy user of energy from the Palo Verde nuclear plant (the largest in the nation) just over 100 miles from the California border in the Arizona desert. By law all electricity used in California (including that imported from other states) must come from renewables by 2045. The most difficult source to replace will be natural gas.
Yes, and the US makes 8x the electricity today that we did in the 1950s. If there is more demand, power companies will build more capacity, just like they always do. If you dropped 200 million EVs on the US overnight, it might be a real problem, but they'll be coming over time, and power companies will build new plants (and upgrade the grid) as needed over time.
China has the world by the short ones when it comes to Lithium supply chain. Ford's Rivian lost 70% of its value recently and posted huge losses thanks to supply chain issues.
Add in the problems of low range and high cost and its unlikely EVs will be bought by anyone except the brie munching, wine sipping Woke crowd for the foreseeable future.
Yes, and the US makes 8x the electricity today that we did in the 1950s. If there is more demand, power companies will build more capacity, just like they always do. If you dropped 200 million EVs on the US overnight, it might be a real problem, but they'll be coming over time, and power companies will build new plants (and upgrade the grid) as needed over time.
To be totally precise, in the year 2000 the US made 8x the electricity they made in 1954. From 2000 to 2020 it increased only 5.5%. More efficient equipment and conservation movement have reduced the need to create much additional electricity. The power industry has concentrated on replacing coal with renewables and natural gas in the last two decades. The primary replacement has been natural gas than renewables.
California's titanic challenge is to produce enough electricity to replace EVs while trying to largely retire natural gas plants in addition to hydrodynamic and nuclear plants.
Yes, and the US makes 8x the electricity today that we did in the 1950s. If there is more demand, power companies will build more capacity, just like they always do. If you dropped 200 million EVs on the US overnight, it might be a real problem, but they'll be coming over time, and power companies will build new plants (and upgrade the grid) as needed over time.
Not in California, the stupid liberal politicians are totally hung up on green energy which is not enough.
China has the world by the short ones when it comes to Lithium supply chain.
How about this? 100% of foreseeable future US lithium needs/40% of the world's lithium needs available from just this one perfect source in California:
"At the Salton Sea, three companies are developing chemical processes to extract lithium in a much cleaner way, taking advantage of the Salton Sea’s rich geothermal resources. Near the lake, there are already 11 operating geothermal power plants, 10 of which are owned by Berkshire Hathaway’s renewable energy division, BHE Renewables.
“We are already pumping 50,000 gallons of brine per minute across all of our 10 geothermal facilities to the surface,” said Alicia Knapp, president and CEO of BHE Renewables, “and we’re using the steam from that brine to generate clean energy. So we’re really halfway there in that we’ve got the lithium right here in our hands.”
Two other companies, EnergySource and Controlled Thermal Resources, or CTR, are also developing joint geothermal-lithium facilities at the Salton Sea, and General Motors has already committed to source lithium from CTR.
“The Salton Sea field, fully developed, could well serve over 600,000 tons a year, when the world production is less than 400 (thousand) now,” said Rod Colwell, CEO of CTR.
Unlike Berkshire Hathaway and EnergySource, CTR doesn’t have any geothermal power plants in the region, so it’s building a joint geothermal and lithium recovery facility all at once. Currently, the company is constructing a demonstration plant and plans to open its first full-scale facility by the beginning of 2024, providing 20,000 tons of lithium to GM."
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Add in the problems of low range and high cost and its unlikely EVs will be bought by anyone except the brie munching, wine sipping Woke crowd for the foreseeable future.
You can't do anything in an EV thread without becoming an insulting git, can you? I have an EV (and have owned them since 2013, and studying them since 2006) and am politically right of center, but people like you have made being on the right look like the absolute WORST place to be politically. Take your crap to the politics section.
Last edited by cvetters63; 05-07-2022 at 11:50 AM..
Production of electricity in 2021 is the same as it was in 1998 when the population was 17% smaller.
Production in GWh in CA
1998 276,412 ...
2021 277,205
If you divide the 2021 number by the population of California you get ~7 MWh per year per capita of which only ~ 5 MWh is generated from inside the state.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 RWD (Long Range) EPA estimate 30 kWh/100 mi or 4.50 MWh to drive 15,000 miles in a year (30x150/1000)
2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum 4WD EPA estimate 51 kWh/100 mi or 7.65 MWh to drive 15,000 miles in a year (51x150/1000)
Obviously California is going to have to produce more electricity to support millions of EVs.
In contrast Wyoming generates ~30 MWh per capita per year so there is more than enough electricity to power a fleet of EVs, but they are a lot less effective in reducing greenhouse gases since Wyoming is primarily using the coal in the Powder River Basin which is going to last for centuries.
Last edited by PacoMartin; 05-07-2022 at 10:40 PM..
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