Bipartisan Charging Bill

Maric

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So one question I have is how are we expecting 500k charging stations to get powered? We might need to reassess our attitude towards nuclear energy. Otherwise we're not going to get away from coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels for the main driver of electricity production. From what I've read France makes incredibly reliable and safe nuclear reactors. I know there would be a lot of fear and pushback on that solution though. Just don't know if wind and solar, with today's tech could handle the load.
 

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So one question I have is how are we expecting 500k charging stations to get powered? We might need to reassess our attitude towards nuclear energy. Otherwise we're not going to get away from coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels for the main driver of electricity production. From what I've read France makes incredibly reliable and safe nuclear reactors. I know there would be a lot of fear and pushback on that solution though. Just don't know if wind and solar, with today's tech could handle the load.
The number of charging stations does not greatly affect the loading on the grid in a direct way. You don't buy more gas because there are more gas stations!

The load is determined by the number of cars out there and their utilization. More convenient access to charging stations would increase utilization somewhat and speed up adoption of EVs, thus indirectly increasing the load.

Your point is a valid one, but should be framed in context of "how do we power X million EVs going forward".
 
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wareagle1440

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So one question I have is how are we expecting 500k charging stations to get powered? We might need to reassess our attitude towards nuclear energy. Otherwise we're not going to get away from coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels for the main driver of electricity production. From what I've read France makes incredibly reliable and safe nuclear reactors. I know there would be a lot of fear and pushback on that solution though. Just don't know if wind and solar, with today's tech could handle the load.
I agree under the current infrastructure, renewable sources like wind and solar cannot replace a source like nuclear. However I think there are creative technologies for hydropower being developed to retrofit non energy producing damns into energy producing facilities (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032119304575).

Additionally there is ridiculous potential capacity for wind and solar and just last year, the wind industry gained another 4% in growth in new infrastructure over the year before (https://www.evwind.es/2020/08/15/th...-capacity-in-the-second-quarter-of-2020/76531). One of the more interesting areas of growth in solar is the agrivoltaic movement. (https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/newsroom/sustainable-farm-agrivoltaic).

While nuclear definitely produces steady and safe energy in its production, it also produces waste that can have ridiculously long half-lives and that waste has to go somewhere. Also I believe it takes about 10 years or more to build a nuclear plant, and in that time you could also build tons of new renewable energy infrastructure.
 
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wareagle1440

wareagle1440

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The number of charging stations does not greatly affect the loading on the grid in a direct way. You don't buy more gas because there are more gas stations!

The load is determined by the number of cars out there and their utilization. More convenient access to charging stations would increase utilization somewhat and speed up adoption of EVs, thus indirectly increasing the load.

Your point is a valid one, but should be framed in context of "how do we power X million EVs going forward".
Unfortunately it does create far more demand and loading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...adiators-push-norway-power-use-to-record-high
 


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Maric

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I agree under the current infrastructure, renewable sources like wind and solar cannot replace a source like nuclear. However I think there are creative technologies for hydropower being developed to retrofit non energy producing damns into energy producing facilities (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032119304575).

Additionally there is ridiculous potential capacity for wind and solar and just last year, the wind industry gained another 4% in growth in new infrastructure over the year before (https://www.evwind.es/2020/08/15/th...-capacity-in-the-second-quarter-of-2020/76531). One of the more interesting areas of growth in solar is the agrivoltaic movement. (https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/newsroom/sustainable-farm-agrivoltaic).

While nuclear definitely produces steady and safe energy in its production, it also produces waste that can have ridiculously long half-lives and that waste has to go somewhere. Also I believe it takes about 10 years or more to build a nuclear plant, and in that time you could also build tons of new renewable energy infrastructure.
Good point on the waste factor and time to build. I'm full solar so I know how well solar solutions work. I also wasn't considering Maquis' point that yeah there might be 500k chargers out there but they are not going to be drawing power simultaneously so 'maybe' the hit on the grid isn't as much of an impact as I had in my head.

Lots to solve for but it can be done. I guess as a country we need to think outside the box on this.
 

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So one question I have is how are we expecting 500k charging stations to get powered? We might need to reassess our attitude towards nuclear energy. Otherwise we're not going to get away from coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels for the main driver of electricity production. From what I've read France makes incredibly reliable and safe nuclear reactors. I know there would be a lot of fear and pushback on that solution though. Just don't know if wind and solar, with today's tech could handle the load.
Yes! Nuclear needs to be an option, and the public needs to be less afraid of it. Most of our U.S. nuclear power plants are really old and based on ancient designs. Newer plants can be smaller, cheaper, more decentralized, and safer. If nuclear isn't in our renewable power portfolio, we'll have a tough time scaling up.

As far as the time to build, the smaller (decentralized) nuclear plants can be built in 5 years. We'd just need to import a bunch of French engineers and contractors to help us out. The reason so many plants take 10 years is regulatory red tape...find a way to streamline that and we'd have a bunch of plants up and running by 2030.

Also, it's not like we'll need the extra power generation right away. The shift to electric cars will be gradual and probably take 15-20 years. That's plenty of time to scale up.
 
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wareagle1440

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I couldn't get all the way through the article before I got kicked out for not being a subscriber. But it seemed that proliferation of charging stations was not named as the culprit in the part I could read. It cited "Electrifying everything..." as the reason for record electric power use.
Here was the oft that got cut off:
“ The country’s love of electric cars won worldwide fame through a Super Bowl ad starring Will Ferrel, but electricity is also the dominant source for heating in Norway. Power is used to warm as much as 85% of all indoor spaces which compares to Sweden where district-heating is the major source.

This has contributed to Norway having the second-highest power consumption per capita in the world, according to the World Bank, only beaten by Iceland. The country expects to keep consuming more with the thirst for power set to grow 30% by 2040.”
 

Maquis

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Here was the oft that got cut off:
“ The country’s love of electric cars won worldwide fame through a Super Bowl ad starring Will Ferrel, but electricity is also the dominant source for heating in Norway. Power is used to warm as much as 85% of all indoor spaces which compares to Sweden where district-heating is the major source.

This has contributed to Norway having the second-highest power consumption per capita in the world, according to the World Bank, only beaten by Iceland. The country expects to keep consuming more with the thirst for power set to grow 30% by 2040.”
Thanks!
Makes sense. Made me curious about the actual per capita numbers:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Bipartisan Charging Bill 1616696343699
 

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The United States has been operating small, safe, modular nuclear power plants for over 50 years. All of them owned by the United States Navy. I know, I am a retired nuclear engineer that served on submarines. If the civilian nuclear industry was run the way the Navy runs it's nuclear plants there would be no issues. Instead, waste, fraud, and excessive red tape has kneecapped the civilian industry. Yes, nuclear waste is produced and must be disposed of/stored until it can decay. That was what Yucca Mountain was for....instead, regulators screwed that up also. The amount of nuclear waste is miniscule compared to the sludge, ash, and carbon waste of conventional oil and coal power plants. Burning coal releases much more nuclear isotopes into the air than a nuclear power plant does. Three mile island was a freak accident. Chernobyl was a design and manmade accident waiting to happen from the start. It is too bad that these two incidents ruined nuclear power.
 

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I'm a Mach E owner and have worked in the power industry for 20 years. Scaling up additional power generation for EV demand won't be a problem. The industry has lots of capacity to build new combined cycle plants (natural gas), wind turbines and solar.

There is plenty of capacity for nuclear as well, but regulations and politics are the barriers. 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl aren't the reason for recent nuclear avoidance. The Tsunami induced failure at the Fukushima plant turned off the nuclear spigot worldwide. Too bad they built the plant on the coast and installed the emergency generators below sea level.

Back to the point: Even today the power industry has lots excess capacity most of the time. It is the peak times (mid day, hottest day of the year) that stresses the grid. The utilities LOVE nighttime EV charging since they have tons of extra capacity at night. The problem is still 10+ years out, and it will get solved between now and then.

There is sooooo much money at stake, so it will be fun to see how the gas station/convenience store market evolves in the next 20 years.
 

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I'm a Mach E owner and have worked in the power industry for 20 years. Scaling up additional power generation for EV demand won't be a problem. The industry has lots of capacity to build new combined cycle plants (natural gas), wind turbines and solar.

There is plenty of capacity for nuclear as well, but regulations and politics are the barriers. 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl aren't the reason for recent nuclear avoidance. The Tsunami induced failure at the Fukushima plant turned off the nuclear spigot worldwide. Too bad they built the plant on the coast and installed the emergency generators below sea level.

Back to the point: Even today the power industry has lots excess capacity most of the time. It is the peak times (mid day, hottest day of the year) that stresses the grid. The utilities LOVE nighttime EV charging since they have tons of extra capacity at night. The problem is still 10+ years out, and it will get solved between now and then.

There is sooooo much money at stake, so it will be fun to see how the gas station/convenience store market evolves in the next 20 years.
Great insight, thanks for sharing. Your last comment really resonates with me. CA's interstate routes (I-5, 8, 10, 50,80, Rte 99, Rte 58) are rife for opportunistic investment to support EVs from passenger to long haul trucking. The current level of local generation, distribution, and network scheduled services to support even a small fraction of current traffic levels is appalling. With all the recent mid to high market, mid to longish range platforms dropping the trickle is going to become a flood.

Do you know if there are working groups in the power gen /dist industries looking at how they are going to provide MW/mile of capacity to networks like I've described above? Based on what you've said, it seems like in CA local mass storage, with modest solar generation, sights might be a scalable solution. Charge your station's local batteries at night from the grid, and then supply with solar and storage during the day. Was all fired up about buying a few shares of Circle-K after seeing the recent vid on this site, but hah, they delisted a few years ago. Current ownership appears to be ahead of the curve. The service industry needs to get their shit together to adopt a schedule in advance capability to allow traffic to minimize dead time and optimize revenue.
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