The problem with EV is where is the power going to come from to charge the battery?
The US power grid has very little extra generation or distribution capacity. The amount of energy used in vehicles is huge, if the energy is not from gas or diesel, and now is electric power, generating and distributing that power is huge expense and problem. We will need more power production and will have to increase the grids capacity to distribute that power.
The Wall Street Journal had an article about US power generation and distribution last month,
WJS Article, but there was nothing really new to the issue if one has been paying attention.
The rate payers are going to have to pay, as they should, to rebuild the grid, but putting more power on the grid will require more money rather than upgrading what exists.
Some areas are going to start getting blackouts, either to save the grid or because there is not enough power because we are shutting down coal, oil, and nuclear power stations before there are replacement power generation is place. But even natural gas plants are not clean enough to the Greens. Since the Western world is shutting down coal, oil and nuclear power stations, the only large scale, non intermittent power generation is through natural gas. The West has taken out a diversity of non intermittent power generation to a single source, natural gas, which has driven up prices, and frankly, is a big reason for Putin's War. Putin's gambit was obvious after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and his building of the Baltic sea gas pipe lines to bypass Ukraine. The German's were okey dokey with it though, but when the German's ex Chancellor went to work for Putin's energy companies right after he left office, is it a surprise? So now we need to supply even more natural gas, without using Russian supplies, which is driving up prices. At least for the short term.
But it gets worse...
But it gets worse...
It is not just New York.
How do you replace 13 gigawatts of power generation with 8 gigawatts and expect everything to be ok? Is the MISO having decreased power demand? Will power demand decrease by 2024? The insanity of this is astounding.
Europe has been following the Green Pied Piper to the energy cliff for more years than the US, but we are following them.
This is going to be painful, but as people start to freeze or overheat depending on the season, as their food costs grow astronomically, as they throw away rotten food because the power went out, again, and when their transportation costs sky rocket, the plans made to go Green will change. But will it be too late? One does not just build a power station over night.
It is going to get worse due to Putin's War. Energy prices in Europe are increasing rapidly. They were doing so late last year to a shortage of wind, thus a shortage of wind power generation, which drove up demand and prices for natural gas. Putin's War has made it worse. I think it was the Netherlands that had a 39% increase in power costs and that is just the beginning. The shortage of grain from Russia and Ukraine, along with the increased cost of fertilizer, is going to raise the price of food all over the world. This is going to cause unrest if Putin's War is not ended soon. Turkey has been suffering horrible economic hardship before Putin's War, and it is going to get much, much worse. Turks were already lining up for free or subsidized bread before Putin's War, it is much worse now and only going to get more worse. Turkey will not be alone.
Some EU countries are cutting taxes on fuel to lower the impact. Course that is going into debt since they need that revenue. They are also giving out chump change a few hundred dollars to help people, well some people, with their energy bills. Last year when the wind generation power shortage started, almost 30 power companies in the UK went out of business. Their natural gas expense rose but they could not increase the price of power to the consumer, they had not choice but to go bankrupt. In the UK, there are only two plants that make fertilizer from natural gas. They shutdown at one point due to the increase of natural gas costs but they restarted when the UK government subsidized some of their expenses. Those plants also make CO2 which is require for not only fizzy sugar water and beer but to slaughter livestock. Without CO2 the livestock processing would stop and there would be no meat to sell.
Ireland is talking about FORCING farmer to grow grain crops. They did this during WWII, and if a farmer did not grow what the government THOUGHT they could grow, the government seized the land.
The gross stupidity of thinking that a livestock producer can just suddenly start growing grain is astounding. Even back in the 40's this was nuts.
The insanity of this is astounding.
Later,
Dan
