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I have been saying this for quite some time: The future vision of an all-electric ground transportation system is between impossible and untenable without a ma

I have been saying this for quite some time: The future vision of an all-electric ground transportation system is between impossible and untenable without a massive scale-up in nuclear energy generation in places like the US. Years ago, as I was trying to understand the reality of electric vehicles, among other things, I put together a model that simulates a fleet of 300 million electric vehicles charging across our various time zones. The model accounts for various percentages of vehicles slow charging overnight (typical at-home charging scenario) and the balance fast-charging. The model uses Tesla charging data (rate of charge, energy requirements, miles per kWh, etc.). The result indicated we need 900 to 1400 GW in order to support a full transition to electric charging. This is IN ADDTION TO what we produce today, which is in the order of 1200 GW. In other words, we need to ADD capacity, we can't magic-wand our way into this reality. In essence, we have to produce the effective energy provided today by gasoline and diesel. By this I mean, once you account for efficiency, the bottom line is gasoline/diesel are used to move a certain mass of vehicles a certain distance in a certain time every day. Whatever is required to do the same with electrics, that's what we need. This is new energy, we can't pull it out of the existing infrastructure. And, speaking of infrastructure, it is important that this is, in many ways more about power than energy. Why? Because it takes power to charge N cars simultaneously in a given geographic region. Even if everyone slow-charges, the time period is finite, say, 8 hours max. This still translates to a requirement for power. The energy is what fills the bucket. Power is how fast you fill it. With so many vehicles plugged in at the same time, you need power over a reasonable period of time. Our grid cannot currently handle such a step change in power transportation. To put it simply: We need larger pipes. This could also mean we need far more than the 900 to 1400 GW I think we do. That is because you have to deliver power, not energy over 24 hours. Solar? No. Not really. It can help, but, at scale, at the scale we need, I think I can very easily make the argument that if the goal is to have clean energy, solar at this scale is far from clean. I can't even imagine the billions of batteries we would need. And then, every N years, you have to deal with recycling or disposing of them. This isn't a simple problem at all. Yet nuclear is, in my opinion, the ONLY technology that can actually deliver on a future vision of an all-electric transportation system. Here's the problem: I don't know about Europe. In the US, in the time it would take us to build a single nuclear reactor (30 years?), China will likely build 300 of them, if not more. The efficiency and focus with which they execute on the obvious plan to achieve economic and technical superiority across the board is nothing less than awe-inspiring. While our politicians burn clock cycles with stupid power games and nonsense, China wakes up every day and puts one foot in front of the other. The only way to think of this is that they deserve the success they have achieved through hard work, focus and perhaps the most impressive national-scale entrepreneurial drive in the history of humanity. I work with Chinese companies (as suppliers in the context of manufacturing) every day. The difference between us and them is absolutely unimaginable to anyone who isn't in this business. All I can say is that, if people in the West don't wake up and start voting for politicians who actually know what they fuck they are doing, the story of what's ahead isn't a good one. Notice that I am not identifying any specific party. In fact, a good starting point would be to fire almost everyone in government and bring in new blood with a new mandate. I better stop here. I get too worked-up about this stuff. It pains me to see so many hard-working people suffer because the people in command of the ship are constantly engaged in power games and bullshit and ignore the fact that the boat is filling with water and will eventually sink.

thehappypm 5y ago
How do you feel about offshore wind? It seems like a potent power source, each one can produce several MW of power. If we need 1TWh we need a few hundred thousand turbines.
- robomartin 5y ago
  > If we need 1TWh we need a few hundred thousand turbines. I think the problem is that once you start analyzing the issue at scale the only solution that could be real today would be a widely distributed nuclear power generation system across the entire country. If we use a 1 GW reactor as the baseline, that means over a thousand power plants need to be built. While the distribution would not be uniform, for sake of easy numbers we can make this assumption and divide by 50 states. That means we need 20 new 1 GW class nuclear power plants per state. California might need 50, while Montana might be able to do with 5. Don't know, I did not model it to that level of detail. The point is the scale of the requirement is absolutely massive. Almost unimaginable. And so, we have people in politics talking about no more internal combustion engines in 25 years and everyone conveniently ignores the physics that makes this absolutely impossible unless we start doing serious work immediately. Solar sounds interesting on paper until you live the reality of solar. My 13 kW array is grossly inadequate for charging electric vehicles because the energy capacity I need has to be in excess of what we are using to run the home. We do a shit job of building efficient homes, so things like cooling your home in the heat of Southern California can easily run 5 kW for much of the day. The fantasy of a 13 kW array is that it is a 13 kW array. Well, it isn't. My peaks are around 8 kW on average. I reach 10 kW during a very narrow window of time in the year, the rest of the time this is what it looks like (actual data): https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png So, if you have two electric vehicles, an air conditioning system pulling 5 kW and other normal things in a normal home, well, this system is not adequate. I would have to probably install a 35 kW system to service all of it. How many people are going go install 30+ kW systems on their homes to join the electric vehicle revolution? Even better: Most roofs simply don't have that much room. Add to this the fact that solar viability diminishes as you move north and you quickly realize solar isn't a magic-wand solution. And, of course, now comes the problem of only having energy available while the sun is up. Which means you probably want a massive battery bank to store it and use it to charge your vehicles at night. AC to DC power conversion is in the order of 80% efficient. Charging, depending on technology, is about the same. So, you go from solar to charging and probably store about 65% of the energy you collect. Then you have to charge your vehicle at night. You have to convert it one more time. This means another 20% to 30% efficiency hit. In other words, the store-and-forward model is likely in the 50% range for energy (panel output to energy level in the car). Physics is really heartless about this stuff. Most of the people (and politicians) pushing this stuff never bother to do any math, and, if they do, they conveniently ignore it. To answer the obvious question: No, I am not going to upsize my system to 35 kW. That would be ridiculous and, in Los Angeles County, the building permit and regulatory issues you'd run into to put such a system on a home that more typically ends-up with a 7 kW system would be insane beyond description. EDIT: One of the reasons for which my array peaks out at 8 kW is that the Los Angeles County Building and Permit department would not allow me to tilt the array to the optimal angle (about 34 degrees if I remember correctly). The array was built with the approved tilt angle of ten degrees. This is due to what I am going to call arcane regional planning rules and other issues. They also made me install --no bullshit-- 64000 lbs of concrete footings and design the array and structure for 200 mile per hour winds. The entire experience was beyond surreal and ridiculous. Want to talk about "clean" energy? Care to guess the CO2 contribution of making 64,000 lbs of concrete, which should include all the processes required to procure the raw materials, transport to the plant, make the concrete, mix it, load it into massive trucks, deliver and install it? I haven't done the math, but I would not be surprised if it exceeds the environmental benefit of having "clean energy" at home. Live and learn.

thehappypm 5y ago

How do you feel about offshore wind? It seems like a potent power source, each one can produce several MW of power. If we need 1TWh we need a few hundred thousand turbines.

robomartin 5y ago
> If we need 1TWh we need a few hundred thousand turbines. I think the problem is that once you start analyzing the issue at scale the only solution that could be real today would be a widely distributed nuclear power generation system across the entire country. If we use a 1 GW reactor as the baseline, that means over a thousand power plants need to be built. While the distribution would not be uniform, for sake of easy numbers we can make this assumption and divide by 50 states. That means we need 20 new 1 GW class nuclear power plants per state. California might need 50, while Montana might be able to do with 5. Don't know, I did not model it to that level of detail. The point is the scale of the requirement is absolutely massive. Almost unimaginable. And so, we have people in politics talking about no more internal combustion engines in 25 years and everyone conveniently ignores the physics that makes this absolutely impossible unless we start doing serious work immediately. Solar sounds interesting on paper until you live the reality of solar. My 13 kW array is grossly inadequate for charging electric vehicles because the energy capacity I need has to be in excess of what we are using to run the home. We do a shit job of building efficient homes, so things like cooling your home in the heat of Southern California can easily run 5 kW for much of the day. The fantasy of a 13 kW array is that it is a 13 kW array. Well, it isn't. My peaks are around 8 kW on average. I reach 10 kW during a very narrow window of time in the year, the rest of the time this is what it looks like (actual data): https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png So, if you have two electric vehicles, an air conditioning system pulling 5 kW and other normal things in a normal home, well, this system is not adequate. I would have to probably install a 35 kW system to service all of it. How many people are going go install 30+ kW systems on their homes to join the electric vehicle revolution? Even better: Most roofs simply don't have that much room. Add to this the fact that solar viability diminishes as you move north and you quickly realize solar isn't a magic-wand solution. And, of course, now comes the problem of only having energy available while the sun is up. Which means you probably want a massive battery bank to store it and use it to charge your vehicles at night. AC to DC power conversion is in the order of 80% efficient. Charging, depending on technology, is about the same. So, you go from solar to charging and probably store about 65% of the energy you collect. Then you have to charge your vehicle at night. You have to convert it one more time. This means another 20% to 30% efficiency hit. In other words, the store-and-forward model is likely in the 50% range for energy (panel output to energy level in the car). Physics is really heartless about this stuff. Most of the people (and politicians) pushing this stuff never bother to do any math, and, if they do, they conveniently ignore it. To answer the obvious question: No, I am not going to upsize my system to 35 kW. That would be ridiculous and, in Los Angeles County, the building permit and regulatory issues you'd run into to put such a system on a home that more typically ends-up with a 7 kW system would be insane beyond description. EDIT: One of the reasons for which my array peaks out at 8 kW is that the Los Angeles County Building and Permit department would not allow me to tilt the array to the optimal angle (about 34 degrees if I remember correctly). The array was built with the approved tilt angle of ten degrees. This is due to what I am going to call arcane regional planning rules and other issues. They also made me install --no bullshit-- 64000 lbs of concrete footings and design the array and structure for 200 mile per hour winds. The entire experience was beyond surreal and ridiculous. Want to talk about "clean" energy? Care to guess the CO2 contribution of making 64,000 lbs of concrete, which should include all the processes required to procure the raw materials, transport to the plant, make the concrete, mix it, load it into massive trucks, deliver and install it? I haven't done the math, but I would not be surprised if it exceeds the environmental benefit of having "clean energy" at home. Live and learn.