California doesn’t have the capability to support the electric car push: Shellenberger
September 1, 2022
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What a surprise (not).
These cars aren’t really ‘electric’, they’re actually ‘battery’ cars. And batteries are ruddy useless!
China will soon have cornered the market in all the components to make these batteries
Good point. They are BVs not EVs.
And you can’t even change the batteries when they have gone flat.
Many moons ago, when I was a student in London, trolley buses were the mainstay of road public transport until about 1970.
Rubber-tyred, not on tracks like trams, they took power from twin overhead cables. Not weighed down by humongous batteries, they were quick, quiet and did the job efficiently —which was the practical object of the exercise, rather than woolly-minded ‘climate’ considerations.
A case of extreme range anxiety?
To run Electric cars . . . You must generate 31% more energy than is required to drive one Mile in an ICE . . . OHM’s Law . . . Resistance !!
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/350-energy/today/electric-vehicles-and-batteries/3204-will-electric-cars-be-the-primary-mode-of-transportation-for-the-21st-century?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
Long live Cacophonia!
Californiastan imports 1/3 of it’s electricity. By 2035, it will be importing 2/3.
So, Cfstan’s electric cars will be powered by Oregon and Arizona.
Newsom isn’t creating a burden for Cfstan, he’s creating a burden for surrounding states. They may choose not to accept the mission.
Oregon is the starting point of the Pacific DC intertie, but not the source of all the electricity that is available from the Northwest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
Half the electricity California generates comes from natural gas and 90% of this is imported from other states. So in reality, 75% of the total energy used in the state is imported.
Regarding the Pacific DC Intertie, the Colombia River electric power enabled aluminum smelters to flourish on the Colombia river basin because power was so cheap. Exporting power to California and other places made them uncompetitive. Now nearly 60% of the worlds Aluminum comes from China so in reality they also forced commodity metal offshore to a country where half the world’s coal is burned.
And what are they supposed to do with all the millions of other cars and trucks when everyone in California is driving electric? Transport them into the ocean? Maybe a few conventional “gas guzzler” vehicles might need to be used…if there is any oil left to make the fuels for those vehicles.
They can put them in the same big holes in the ground that the spent turbine blades are buried in! Sheer madness.
Put them in the same hole in the ground as the spent turbine blades are buried in! Sheer madness!
Plenty of oil. Not enough electricity.
Then don’t burn gas to produce electricity – use oil derived liquids.
Imagine if China started behaving like Russia, restricting or cutting off supplies of raw materials for batteries to ‘unfriendly’ countries…
I think they would be doing us a favour as it would kill off all the battery nonsense.
There are already problems with electricity generation capacity. Why add unnecessary, less practical and more expensive electric cars? It’s not only the USA though. Look at the imbecile politicians in Europe.
Looks like uk doesn’t either.
Cook dinner after 8pm, wash your clothes at morning or night and turn off your lights if the WIND doesn’t blow: Experts warn Britons could face energy rationing to avoid blackouts at Christmas – as ministers draw up plans to ‘dim the lights’ this winter
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11170419/Families-asked-ration-energy-use-WIND-doesnt-blow-avoid-blackouts.html
The UK is already heading for blackouts this Winter , and that is with only about 1% odd of vehicles being battery EVs .
For 20% of vehicles to charge up at any time would need 100% increase in generation capacity .
The whole thing is just Green Net Zero insanity .
And all the supermarkerts will have to dump all their frozen food after four hours.
Octopus are still offering electricity at 7.5p/kWh for 4 hours off-peak.
So there must be excess electricity to sell overnight.
Shellenberger: concise, coherent and convincing. Glad to have had the opportunity to hear him . I must remember ” angry teenagers” when captive in one of their audiences.
Kzbkzb,
there has always been excess generating capacity at night as demand is low. However as the number of EVs and heat pumps increase this must change and cheap off peak power will be history.
Plus there is likelihood of catastrophic overlap. People aren’t going to want to go out in their jammies to plug in the car just before they go to bed, which is when power demand drops off. They’ll do it when they get home from work. Dinnertime blackouts likely.
Gamecock:
it’s a non-problem. The EV software will turn the charging on and off in accordance with the cheap tariff availability.
The PTB may know a lot about EV software, but they don’t know a lot about people…
Hello Kjbkzb,
I hope the software is clever enough to stagger the switch on time, as power systems do not like large loads being applied at the same time.
They will recharge electric cars WHENEVER there is no (or very little) range left. That can be any time of day.
I checked with my Tesla Model 3 owning friend.
His charger does in fact have a timer on it. He sets it for 1 AM. He says he gets a lower rate then.
It does NOT sense “cheap tariff availability.” That may be a European thang.
Iain Reid makes an excellent point. Next time I see my Tesla owning friend, I’m going to suggest 1:01.
A timer on a Tesla doesn’t help unless you know with certainty that you are going to be connected to a charging point at a specific time.
It’s in his garage.
Americans who buy Teslas have chargers in their home garage. They will NEVER use a public charger.
Still missing the point. Even in your own garage, you still have to know in advance that you will be there at a specific time to use the timer.
Unless it’s an old-fashioned clockwork timer, a timer depends for its power supply from the same input as it is switching out to the consumer…
As with refilling normal petrol and diesel vehicles, you recharge EVs when you run out of (or are approaching end of range), NOT at specific times of day or even days of the week.
And of course refilling petrol and diesel means not available for ten minutes while EVs are not available for several hours each time (and don’t forget they need recharging more often).
Nope. Petrol vehicle management and EV management are NOT alike.
The whole point of private transport is that you are not bound to fixed times of day and that _every_ journey is predictable. This is what makes EVs impractical.
False again, Realy. My friend’s car is quite practical. He knows it’s limitations, and lives within them.
“People think California is transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables. In reality, it transitions from renewables to fossil fuels well before the sun sets on even our sunniest days pic.twitter.com/JFmZepwfTQ
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) September 6, 2022”
In reality, California is transitioning from fossil fuels to no power.
You simply can’t power a modern society with renewables. The more you implement renewables, the less power you have. This is too complicated for LA Times, WaPo, BBC and Guardian. And for CBS, ABS, NBS, and CNNBS.
Should the West continue on its energy trajectory, this California mess will seem trivial.