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Electrification really is coming along apace! First california bans petrol lawnmowers and generators, now New York bans gas heating. I wrote a blog post on the

Electrification really is coming along apace! First california bans petrol lawnmowers and generators, now New York bans gas heating. I wrote a blog post on the first topic recently [1] but I guess there really is an impetus for rapid change now. Not that banning new users of gas in one city is going to fix the climate, but it's a start... [1]: https://bearbin.net/blog/2021/california-is-not-taking-your-generator-away https://bearbin.net/blog/2021/california-is-not-taking-your-...

Teknoman117 5y ago
The main worry I have at this point is that while moving towards electric is great, we're not addressing all the problems we need to for that to work. America's electric grid is in a bad state, and unless we also start improving it quickly, the extra load is going to cause problems. Take California for instance. We're adopting electric vehicles rapidly, pushing for everyone to convert all their appliances and home systems to electric, and the increasing temperature is driving up air conditioning load every year. At the same time, our power distribution is falling apart and we have rolling blackouts throughout the state at the hottest point of the year. Not to mention that we're operating at a large energy deficit because of the shuttering of fossil fuel and nuclear plants before the renewable generation has even broken ground. By GWh, most of the under construction generation capacity in CA are natural gas turbines. While a major improvement over coal, it's still two orders of magnitude more CO2 produced per GWh compared to the nuclear plants they're replacing or the renewable plants we said we were going to build.
- drusenko 5y ago
  Electric cars will help tremendously with load shifting once we get bidirectional charging in 1-2 years. A Tesla Model 3 can fully power an average 3000 sq-ft home for 2-3 days. What will be most powerful though is helping the grid with peak shaving by giving some of that stored power back during the worst hour or two of the day. That said I don’t disagree on some generation challenges, I’m finding it hard to find transparency on our long term plan to meet our power mix needs in the winter with pure renewables and no nuclear. Summer (where we have rolling blackouts currently) is relatively easier though since it tends to be a matter of just bridging the gap for a short while, which you can do in all sorts of ways.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > A Tesla Model 3 can fully power an average 3000 sq-ft home for 2-3 days. An average US home is 2,500 square feet, but that aside the average US home power consumptions is about 30kWh per day, so, yes, the 82kWh battery for the newest Model 3 Long Range can power an average home for more than 2 and less than 3 average days.

Teknoman117 5y ago

The main worry I have at this point is that while moving towards electric is great, we're not addressing all the problems we need to for that to work. America's electric grid is in a bad state, and unless we also start improving it quickly, the extra load is going to cause problems. Take California for instance. We're adopting electric vehicles rapidly, pushing for everyone to convert all their appliances and home systems to electric, and the increasing temperature is driving up air conditioning load every year. At the same time, our power distribution is falling apart and we have rolling blackouts throughout the state at the hottest point of the year. Not to mention that we're operating at a large energy deficit because of the shuttering of fossil fuel and nuclear plants before the renewable generation has even broken ground. By GWh, most of the under construction generation capacity in CA are natural gas turbines. While a major improvement over coal, it's still two orders of magnitude more CO2 produced per GWh compared to the nuclear plants they're replacing or the renewable plants we said we were going to build.

drusenko 5y ago
Electric cars will help tremendously with load shifting once we get bidirectional charging in 1-2 years. A Tesla Model 3 can fully power an average 3000 sq-ft home for 2-3 days. What will be most powerful though is helping the grid with peak shaving by giving some of that stored power back during the worst hour or two of the day. That said I don’t disagree on some generation challenges, I’m finding it hard to find transparency on our long term plan to meet our power mix needs in the winter with pure renewables and no nuclear. Summer (where we have rolling blackouts currently) is relatively easier though since it tends to be a matter of just bridging the gap for a short while, which you can do in all sorts of ways.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > A Tesla Model 3 can fully power an average 3000 sq-ft home for 2-3 days. An average US home is 2,500 square feet, but that aside the average US home power consumptions is about 30kWh per day, so, yes, the 82kWh battery for the newest Model 3 Long Range can power an average home for more than 2 and less than 3 average days.