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Permitting new power lines is difficult. Here [0] is an example of a project stalled due to opposition. It is unrealistic to think that someone is going to pay

Permitting new power lines is difficult. Here [0] is an example of a project stalled due to opposition. It is unrealistic to think that someone is going to pay for transmission lines to get built with excess capacity most of the time in case we need to send power from one coast to another. Building power lines is expensive, battery storage is also expensive, so if you want to promote intermittent generation sources far from loads simply add those to the cost when comparing to other sources to make a fair comparison. People will mostly all charge their vehicles at night, so it won’t be from solar power. Unless the solar has battery storage, in which case we are charging batteries from batteries, which is inefficient. I’m not sure why you think there is a lot of flexibility in the existing hydro power, there isn’t that much of it and it is often constrained by having to keep rivers flowing or saving water for peaks. My point about nuclear is that it is competitive in other countries, the problem is that North America can’t competitively build it any more not due to technological problems but political and managerial issues. Imagine global warming could have been avoided by getting really good at building nuclear plants. Look at how much imaginary money has been printed for less catastrophic problems. We could have done it, we still can. Nuclear is uncompetitive because we have somehow made it so here. a robust grid needs a variety of energy sources, Arguing against any low carbon source is counter productive to me. There is always going to be a need for generation with a characteristic like nuclear power. Edit: I should also add hydro projects in Canada such as muskrat falls and site C are costing 10-20 billion which I believe is similar to nuclear and also taking a decade to finish. 0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-hydro-quebec-transmission-line-1.6445554 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-...

salawat 4y ago
>People will mostly all charge their vehicles at night, so it won’t be from solar power. It always amazes me that people assume that. Take a 3 car household. Lets assume every one is a Tesla. Just for ease of calculation. To charge a Tesla in 8 hours, one needs a 240v level 2 charger. This is the same type of connection one would need for a washer/drier/oven/stove. Per car. Now. You've about doubled the number of high pull outlets in the average home. Most people [sans shift workers] work during the day, and there are only so many hours in the day for people to charge. 3 Teslas could in theory be charged back to back off one outlet, but now you have a nightly ritual. I assure you, people will go for the parallel charge. Now expand this load to neighborhood scale. Now propagate that to the trandmission infrastructure. This is not as easy a thing to accommodate once you start sitting down and actually tracking the numbers.
- liketochill 4y ago
  So you think there will be two cars charging at night per house instead of 1? As long as people aren’t also using their oven and running the drier I don’t see that it changes much for required transmission and generation capacity, but there would be more energy used at night than we currently see.
  - salawat 4y ago
    The more you can use, generally the more you will. And people really discount the drain of say, an extended family who all have to charge vehicles for work the next day. It's not a pretty picture.
    - liketochill 4y ago
      Meh, I’m not seeing a capacity problem. Either their panel can handle the load or it can’t and then they have to upgrade panel to higher amperage, and if the whole street upgrades their panels then the utility might have a problem. I think the main problem is going to be that we are going to need a tonne more energy to replace fossil fuels and the daily demand curve with the diurnal pattern is going to flatten right out as people charge all night.

salawat 4y ago

>People will mostly all charge their vehicles at night, so it won’t be from solar power. It always amazes me that people assume that. Take a 3 car household. Lets assume every one is a Tesla. Just for ease of calculation. To charge a Tesla in 8 hours, one needs a 240v level 2 charger. This is the same type of connection one would need for a washer/drier/oven/stove. Per car. Now. You've about doubled the number of high pull outlets in the average home. Most people [sans shift workers] work during the day, and there are only so many hours in the day for people to charge. 3 Teslas could in theory be charged back to back off one outlet, but now you have a nightly ritual. I assure you, people will go for the parallel charge. Now expand this load to neighborhood scale. Now propagate that to the trandmission infrastructure. This is not as easy a thing to accommodate once you start sitting down and actually tracking the numbers.

liketochill 4y ago
So you think there will be two cars charging at night per house instead of 1? As long as people aren’t also using their oven and running the drier I don’t see that it changes much for required transmission and generation capacity, but there would be more energy used at night than we currently see.
- salawat 4y ago
  The more you can use, generally the more you will. And people really discount the drain of say, an extended family who all have to charge vehicles for work the next day. It's not a pretty picture.
  - liketochill 4y ago
    Meh, I’m not seeing a capacity problem. Either their panel can handle the load or it can’t and then they have to upgrade panel to higher amperage, and if the whole street upgrades their panels then the utility might have a problem. I think the main problem is going to be that we are going to need a tonne more energy to replace fossil fuels and the daily demand curve with the diurnal pattern is going to flatten right out as people charge all night.