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Has anyone run the numbers on what the "gas car sales ban"[1] would do to increase electricity consumption in California? Is there a plan to scale up electrici

Has anyone run the numbers on what the "gas car sales ban"[1] would do to increase electricity consumption in California? Is there a plan to scale up electricity production to meet that need? [1] I haven't read the law, so I don't actually know if it "bans" anything.

themagician 4y ago
There really is no grand plan to increase capacity of the grid. I think there is some hope that improvements in battery/solar production somehow magically fix the energy problem. The EV "revolution" was really powered by one salesman's dream—Elon Musk. Decades before Tesla there was a lot of discussion about whether EVs powered by heavy and expensive batteries could ever be successful and sustainable at scale. It's why some companies tried (and are still trying) things like fuel cells/hydrogen (which has its own problems for sure). But Elon Musk just kind of decided for us that battery powered EVs were the future. Everyone will drive and all the logistics involved with battery and electric production were simply shuffled under the rug because the Telsa was pretty cool. The battery powered EV future is very much reliant on technology that doesn't exist yet, which must be invented before we run out of the raw materials (or more likely, wars disrupt the pipeline of these now precious materials) to make batteries and before the grid collapses under the weight of people thinking they are going to "save money" by getting an EV. We already see the outrage in home solar as those who got solar simply for the cost savings are losing their minds now that states are looking to tax them for leaving the grid.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Norway is proof by example that you're wrong.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    Norway (and the nordic countries in general) are rarely if ever a good example of anything in reality. Their populations are far too small (Norway is < 6 million for example, Los Angeles county alone is over 10 million) and natural resources in such excess that their situation doesn't apply to a nation the size of the US (325-350 million). Things they do don't scale to match the US.
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Being smaller makes things harder, not easier.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        I'd like to know how one comes to that conclusion.
  - themagician 4y ago
    How is that? There are 10 metro areas in the US alone with a population greater than all of Norway. There are, what, 200,000 or so Teslas in Norway? With massive oil reserves and massive wind farms. How exactly does what Norway has accomplished scale to the US? Or to China? The amount of cars in Norway is about 1% of the amount in the US.
    - clouddrover 4y ago
      > There are, what, 200,000 or so Teslas in Norway? At this moment there are 87,958 Teslas in Norway: https://elbilstatistikk.no/ https://elbilstatistikk.no/ Volkswagen sells the most EVs in Norway across all of its brands (VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Cupra, Porsche, Scania, MAN, etc.). Volkswagen Group develops platforms and the different brands build their variants on those platforms. The VW ID.4, VW ID.5, Audi Q4 e-tron, Audi Q4 e-tron sportback, Skoda Enyaq, and Skoda Enyaq coupe are brand variants of the same car.
      - kkfx 4y ago
        This is more interesting... https://norwaytoday.info/news/the-norwegian-state-is-covering-75-of-the-charging-costs-for-electric-cars/ https://norwaytoday.info/news/the-norwegian-state-is-coverin...
- DennisP 4y ago
  Musk didn't "decide for us," he made a product that's attractive to consumers. If the companies working on fuel cells and hydrogen manage to do the same, then maybe those will actually have an impact. The other reason electrics have done well is that battery costs have plummeted. If the trend continues, electric cars will be cheaper than ICE in a couple years. Meanwhile, fuel cells are still quite expensive, and hydrogen has a chicken-and-egg problem since it would require extensive new infrastructure. That's not a problem for electrics, where you can plug in even if you're the only electric in town. Yeah, we're going to need plenty of electricity. But that's a given, if we're going to decarbonize transportation. That's true even if you're running on hydrogen: if you're using "green hydrogen" from electrolysis then you're still using electricity. If you're using hydrogen made from natural gas, then you're effectively still burning fossil fuels.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Mh, a small note: seeing Toyota Mirai I doubt hydrogen fuel-cell cars would be less unsustainable than BEVs. Not counting their astronomic price, the complexity of the infra needed to distribute VERY high pressure gas with very little molecules they are still BEVs because fuel-cells are not so fast to adapt their power output as a result you get a small battery BEV, with the battery hyper-stressed. Something that hardly last.
causality0 4y ago
Last I heard US domestic energy consumption breaks down into about 50% electrical generation and 50% fossil fuel motors and engines of all types. Figure needing to roughly double electrical generating capacity to replace every internal combustion motor with an electric one.
falcolas 4y ago
I dont have specific numbers, but the formula is straightforward. Cars * 12000 * kwh/m EDIT: Numbers, with a tesla model 3. 15 000 000 * 12 000 * .24 Around 43 200 GWh. The total power generation in CA was around 194 000 GWh in 2021
- remarkEon 4y ago
  Thanks. And how is this formula derived?
  - falcolas 4y ago
    The magic number of 12000 is the average number of miles a car is driven in a year. So, multiply that by kilowatt hours per mile, and you’ll get the energy consumption of one car per year. Times the number of cars in CA, and you have the amount of power used by cars in CA, and by association the power consumed to charge cars. There are some inefficiencies, but they’re in the 2% range.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      Thanks again. So if your numbers are right, California needs to increase it's electricity production by ~25%. This seems hard, but I think that only because I'm used to other things where increasing output by 25% is very difficult. How much does California increase its electricity output each year? Does PG&E et. al. publish data on that? A quick google is failing me.
      - frumper 4y ago
        Well, it’s more complicated than just A + B. Power is currently more constrained by peak, and most car charging isn’t done during peak. It is easier to produce more off peak than to increase peak. There is also a question of how efficient EVs might be in 13 years. Cars have tended to get incrementally more efficient over time and there is no reason to believe that won’t also happen with EVs.
      - falcolas 4y ago

themagician 4y ago

There really is no grand plan to increase capacity of the grid. I think there is some hope that improvements in battery/solar production somehow magically fix the energy problem. The EV "revolution" was really powered by one salesman's dream—Elon Musk. Decades before Tesla there was a lot of discussion about whether EVs powered by heavy and expensive batteries could ever be successful and sustainable at scale. It's why some companies tried (and are still trying) things like fuel cells/hydrogen (which has its own problems for sure). But Elon Musk just kind of decided for us that battery powered EVs were the future. Everyone will drive and all the logistics involved with battery and electric production were simply shuffled under the rug because the Telsa was pretty cool. The battery powered EV future is very much reliant on technology that doesn't exist yet, which must be invented before we run out of the raw materials (or more likely, wars disrupt the pipeline of these now precious materials) to make batteries and before the grid collapses under the weight of people thinking they are going to "save money" by getting an EV. We already see the outrage in home solar as those who got solar simply for the cost savings are losing their minds now that states are looking to tax them for leaving the grid.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Norway is proof by example that you're wrong.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Norway (and the nordic countries in general) are rarely if ever a good example of anything in reality. Their populations are far too small (Norway is < 6 million for example, Los Angeles county alone is over 10 million) and natural resources in such excess that their situation doesn't apply to a nation the size of the US (325-350 million). Things they do don't scale to match the US.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Being smaller makes things harder, not easier.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      I'd like to know how one comes to that conclusion.
- themagician 4y ago
  How is that? There are 10 metro areas in the US alone with a population greater than all of Norway. There are, what, 200,000 or so Teslas in Norway? With massive oil reserves and massive wind farms. How exactly does what Norway has accomplished scale to the US? Or to China? The amount of cars in Norway is about 1% of the amount in the US.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    > There are, what, 200,000 or so Teslas in Norway? At this moment there are 87,958 Teslas in Norway: https://elbilstatistikk.no/ https://elbilstatistikk.no/ Volkswagen sells the most EVs in Norway across all of its brands (VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Cupra, Porsche, Scania, MAN, etc.). Volkswagen Group develops platforms and the different brands build their variants on those platforms. The VW ID.4, VW ID.5, Audi Q4 e-tron, Audi Q4 e-tron sportback, Skoda Enyaq, and Skoda Enyaq coupe are brand variants of the same car.
    - kkfx 4y ago
      This is more interesting... https://norwaytoday.info/news/the-norwegian-state-is-covering-75-of-the-charging-costs-for-electric-cars/ https://norwaytoday.info/news/the-norwegian-state-is-coverin...
DennisP 4y ago
Musk didn't "decide for us," he made a product that's attractive to consumers. If the companies working on fuel cells and hydrogen manage to do the same, then maybe those will actually have an impact. The other reason electrics have done well is that battery costs have plummeted. If the trend continues, electric cars will be cheaper than ICE in a couple years. Meanwhile, fuel cells are still quite expensive, and hydrogen has a chicken-and-egg problem since it would require extensive new infrastructure. That's not a problem for electrics, where you can plug in even if you're the only electric in town. Yeah, we're going to need plenty of electricity. But that's a given, if we're going to decarbonize transportation. That's true even if you're running on hydrogen: if you're using "green hydrogen" from electrolysis then you're still using electricity. If you're using hydrogen made from natural gas, then you're effectively still burning fossil fuels.
kkfx 4y ago
Mh, a small note: seeing Toyota Mirai I doubt hydrogen fuel-cell cars would be less unsustainable than BEVs. Not counting their astronomic price, the complexity of the infra needed to distribute VERY high pressure gas with very little molecules they are still BEVs because fuel-cells are not so fast to adapt their power output as a result you get a small battery BEV, with the battery hyper-stressed. Something that hardly last.

causality0 4y ago

Last I heard US domestic energy consumption breaks down into about 50% electrical generation and 50% fossil fuel motors and engines of all types. Figure needing to roughly double electrical generating capacity to replace every internal combustion motor with an electric one.

falcolas 4y ago

I dont have specific numbers, but the formula is straightforward. Cars * 12000 * kwh/m EDIT: Numbers, with a tesla model 3. 15 000 000 * 12 000 * .24 Around 43 200 GWh. The total power generation in CA was around 194 000 GWh in 2021

remarkEon 4y ago
Thanks. And how is this formula derived?
- falcolas 4y ago
  The magic number of 12000 is the average number of miles a car is driven in a year. So, multiply that by kilowatt hours per mile, and you’ll get the energy consumption of one car per year. Times the number of cars in CA, and you have the amount of power used by cars in CA, and by association the power consumed to charge cars. There are some inefficiencies, but they’re in the 2% range.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    Thanks again. So if your numbers are right, California needs to increase it's electricity production by ~25%. This seems hard, but I think that only because I'm used to other things where increasing output by 25% is very difficult. How much does California increase its electricity output each year? Does PG&E et. al. publish data on that? A quick google is failing me.
    - frumper 4y ago
      Well, it’s more complicated than just A + B. Power is currently more constrained by peak, and most car charging isn’t done during peak. It is easier to produce more off peak than to increase peak. There is also a question of how efficient EVs might be in 13 years. Cars have tended to get incrementally more efficient over time and there is no reason to believe that won’t also happen with EVs.
    - falcolas 4y ago