Survey: 7 out of 10 Americans see an EV in the future, want more vehicle choices and charging

[JamieGeek]

You’re probably thinking about articles like this. During the cool months in California, the grid becomes unbalanced with too much solar in the afternoons. California then pays neighboring states to take the excess electricity. Those states pocket the money and reduce their own solar generation.

LA Times

Yup, thats it.

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[Randy E.]

Nuclear power is expensive and takes forever to build out.

At the rate of world population growth it’s the only solution for mass power. France would tell you Nuclear is not expensive. They do it right. Mini-Plants are the next generation. Power 150k homes, plant is not bigger than a home. Full-on melt-down? Put in in a garbage truck and start again. It’s really amazing tech. A few startups are into this and OSU has decades of research on it... That or massive coal burning, while we continue to remove dams... Solar and Wind are costly (subsidies dry up and it becomes really costly), and these two options can only augment hydro and coal but not replace it...
There is a great enviro documentary about Nuclear on Prime - check it out.

 

[Randy E.]

And Chernobyl. And Fukashima. And very nearly Salem 1 in NJ.

Trivia Question: Which technology has killed more people? Wind or Nuclear? Yes, wind. Nuclear. Chernobyl was a flawed design run by socialist communists run amuck in politic and idiocracy (great move btw) ; )

Fukashima - True disaster.

 

[stroszek]

At the rate of world population growth it’s the only solution for mass power. France would tell you Nuclear is not expensive. They do it right. Mini-Plants are the next generation. Power 150k homes, plant is not bigger than a home. Full-on melt-down? Put in in a garbage truck and start again. It’s really amazing tech. A few startups are into this and OSU has decades of research on it... That or massive coal burning, while we continue to remove dams... Solar and Wind are costly (subsidies dry up and it becomes really costly), and these two options can only augment hydro and coal but not replace it...
There is a great enviro documentary about Nuclear on Prime - check it out.

Solar and wind are extremely cheap and only getting cheaper and the US isn't France in the 1970s.

 

[Maric]

Unfortunately California is the largest net importer of any state. A net 25% of our electricity comes from out of state.

Our rolling blackouts this summer were significant when the peaker plants and neighboring states couldn't meet the demand. It's typical to get Flex Alerts during the summer to reduce our electricity demands, shutoff appliances etc. We also get Public Safety Power Shutoffs during the wildfire seasons. There are times of the year however when Calif utilities have to pay other states to take surplus energy.

EIA Dec 2020: California was the largest net electricity importer of any state in 2019

I have lived in CA. 31 years and have never had a blackout. I live in a suburb of Sacramento. Solar has been booming here for about 10 years. Now, every house built has solar. I sell energy back to the grid. I think this will quickly become the norm and the need to buy energy from outside the State will disappear.

Lets not forget why CA is having rolling blackouts. It’s because PG&E didn't place decades of profits back into infrastructure, didn’t maintain thousands of miles of cable and transformers, and got sued into bankruptcy as a result.

Wind and solar is the answer in my opinion.

 

[timbop]

Trivia Question: Which technology has killed more people? Wind or Nuclear? Yes, wind.

Sorry, but I call bullsh*t. I'm assuming that is based on some kind of cherry picking of statistics, but a wind turbine falling over in a field can only kill dozens. The unlikely but still possible worst case for a nuclear accident in a populated area is 4 or 5 orders of magnitude more, AND the area around the accident is uninhabitable for centuries. In 5 decades of nuclear we've averaged on the order of 1 accident a decade; that's clearly an indication that the engineering isn't as good as we'd like to think.

The soviets surely hid not only how many died directly trying to get chernobyl under control as well as the records of all those exposed. Oh and Chernobyl isn't done yet; the sarcophagus they managed to put over the reactor building is only a first step to dismantling the reactor and preventing a second disaster there. Vast swaths of land around Fukashima will be uninhabitable for centuries, and Japan surely cannot afford to lose that much land for that long.

Nuclear anywhere other then unpopulated and unproductive land is just a stupid gamble.

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