3 ms·

> Third, in the US, we need approximately 1200 GW in new power generation and transport capacity. Of course, this would be distributed non-uniformly according t

> Third, in the US, we need approximately 1200 GW in new power generation and transport capacity. Of course, this would be distributed non-uniformly according to regional requirements. The grid needs to be able to move this power as well. The current infrastructure cannot. > For context, the entire power generation system in the US is good for about 1200 GW today. In other words we, conceptually, need to create a full duplicate of the US power generation and transport system. To give a sense of how ludicrous this is as a solution, the $12tn of capital required for this is enough to build 10m of rail for every urban household and 100m for every non-urban household. It would make the swiss rail system look incredibly sparse and underbuilt. You could even have a train within 10km of everyone in rural wyoming with such an overinvestment. Just the operational costs of such a fleet could build 100GW net of renewables every year.

robomartin 4y ago
> To give a sense of how ludicrous this is as a solution If you are talking about how ridiculous it would be to have to double our entire power generation and distribution system in order to support the EV dream, I could not agree more. Rail and mass transport? Not sure. Not because I don't like it. I do. I just thing that the US has, for better or worse, evolved into a country where the geographic distribution of homes and work as well as cultural and everyday life realities just can't support that. Take a city like Los Angeles. It is, quite literally, impossible to replace individually-driven vehicles with mass transport. You just can't do it. You would have to tear-up half the city to be able to provide enough granularity for people to actually want to ride mass transport. Also, let's not ignore crime. I just saw a video of yet another person getting shoved hard into subway tracks in NYC. People are afraid. I don't understand the political perspective that has veered so far off track that crime is exploding nearly everywhere in this nation. It is objectively wrong and it does nothing to promote for such things as mass transport. I know people in NYC who are buying a car for the first time. They want nothing to do with mass transport. Oh yes, and they are also buying guns for the first time. As is often the case, solutions are not always just technical or financial. There's a human element to consider. Mass transport, I believe, is one of those things that is being destroyed in the US due to bad crime and law enforcement policies. What's weird about this is that the Democratic party is very much for public transportation and in favor of limiting gun ownership, while, at the same time, supporting such lax crime policies that they drive people away from mass transport and towards having to think about owning cars and guns to protect themselves. This does not seem like a well thought-out framework at all. Two other thoughts. I think self driving cars might be the only hope the US has to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and create what I call a virtual mass transport system. If I could summon a car to come drive me to and from anywhere I want to go, I would likely not own a car or, to be sure, not drive it as much. Driving is a huge waste of time because it takes-up all of your attention. Self driving mini-buses could do a great job of enhancing a hub-and-spoke system that would pick-up people from suburban neighborhoods and facilitate transport through larger long distance buses or rail. The problem with mass rail in a place like Los Angeles is that I have to drive about an hour to be able to get on a train. There is no way that train is ever going to come closer to me. That's a non-starter. Second, the power and related power distribution requirement for full transition to EV's is very much real. We cannot make the transition with what we currently have. This, to me, implies a need for a plan that nobody is talking about, because we have become so cultish about certain things that logical thinking seems impossible. EV's require us to undertake massive construction projects in order to enhance the infrastructure. The cost of construction is deeply influence by the cost of everything derived from oil. Not just fuel. Thousands of products trace their origins and dependencies to that barrel of oil. Expensive oil means we, quite literally, cannot afford these projects. Again, this isn't trivial, we are talking about doubling our entire power infrastructure. If we had our heads screwed-on right and could leave ideology behind the solution would almost be self evident: 1- Create and agree on a plan for full electrification within a reasonable timeline. Being that the dependency is power generation, that timeline is likely in the 25 to 50 year range. 2- Set this as a national goal, with laws and changes to laws that will allow for this to happen. Removal of red tape is crucial. Construction projects need to be able to be completed in a few years, rather than decades. 3- Drill baby drill. We need oil at $20 per barrel. Less if possible. However, that's not for the sport of it. The objective is to light-up tons of infrastructure projects to enable that full migration to EV's. Cheap oil, when married to a solid plan, equally solid execution and the legal/regulatory framework to allow for efficient progress would enable the kinds of things we would need to do. If we could pull something like this off, in a few decades people would naturally migrate towards EV's. They would make sense because the infrastructure would be there. Oil and IC vehicles would naturally start to disappear as EV's would certainly become a better option. The kind of thing California is trying to do is dumb as shit. Mandating no IC vehicles in just eight years? There is no way the infrastructure is going to be anywhere close to ready in eight years. We already suffer from blackouts. The only thing this forced transition is going to do is sell a shit-ton of IC cars the year before the mandate goes into effect. People are going to make a mad scramble to upgrade their cars or buy new IC cars before they can no-longer buy them in CA. You just can't do things that way. The scale is massive. You have to have a wholistic plan that addresses as many of the variables as possible. That requires a little more thought than cheap political stunts.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  US net power generation is 400GW. You're talking about increasing it six-fold (or 20-fold) with the most expensive option. Yes, it's absurd. > Take a city like Los Angeles. It is, quite literally, impossible to replace individually-driven vehicles with mass transport. You just can't do it. You would have to tear-up half the city to be able to provide enough granularity for people to actually want to ride mass transport. You already did it once to force people into cars. And luckily you don't need redlining to get rid of highways. It's far more feasible than committing 10s or 100s of trillions to reactors that can't physically exist. > Self driving mini-buses could do a great job of enhancing a hub-and-spoke system that would pick-up people from suburban neighborhoods and facilitate transport through larger long distance buses or rail. It's called a trolley bus (or automated light rail). And most of california's population already had access to it once without "full self driving next year" for decades. Also I love your conception of possibility as "I think it would be convenient for me personally to do this thing" rather than the physical existence of enough U235
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > US net power generation is 400GW Not sure where this number comes from. It's 1200 GW. https://www.publicpower.org/resource/americas-electricity-generating-capacity https://www.publicpower.org/resource/americas-electricity-ge... > You already did it once to force people into cars. And luckily you don't need redlining to get rid of highways. Impossible. You are starting to sound like you don't live in the US. Perhaps you don't understand just how hard it is to get anything done here? > It's called a trolley bus (or automated light rail). And most of california's population already had access to it once without "full self driving next year" for decades. Also impossible. It's a reality. Sorry. > Also I love your conception of possibility as "I think it would be convenient for me personally to do this thing" rather than the physical existence of enough U235 How about you don't resort to insults and discuss facts instead? TWO DECADES AGO a research report from MIT concluded that, at that time, we had more than enough uranium ore to power a thousand reactors for 50 years. Since then we have gotten very good at extracting uranium from other sources as well as recycling. I don't think we have a problem. The question is: How much power do we need? Once that is answered, we need to decide on what assortment of nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal and, likely, fossil generation approaches we need to use over time to provide what's needed. No single technology can cover all of it. Nuclear is likely to have to play a more significant role than most people think. How much? I have no clue. There's politics involved too, so, feel free to guess.

robomartin 4y ago

> To give a sense of how ludicrous this is as a solution If you are talking about how ridiculous it would be to have to double our entire power generation and distribution system in order to support the EV dream, I could not agree more. Rail and mass transport? Not sure. Not because I don't like it. I do. I just thing that the US has, for better or worse, evolved into a country where the geographic distribution of homes and work as well as cultural and everyday life realities just can't support that. Take a city like Los Angeles. It is, quite literally, impossible to replace individually-driven vehicles with mass transport. You just can't do it. You would have to tear-up half the city to be able to provide enough granularity for people to actually want to ride mass transport. Also, let's not ignore crime. I just saw a video of yet another person getting shoved hard into subway tracks in NYC. People are afraid. I don't understand the political perspective that has veered so far off track that crime is exploding nearly everywhere in this nation. It is objectively wrong and it does nothing to promote for such things as mass transport. I know people in NYC who are buying a car for the first time. They want nothing to do with mass transport. Oh yes, and they are also buying guns for the first time. As is often the case, solutions are not always just technical or financial. There's a human element to consider. Mass transport, I believe, is one of those things that is being destroyed in the US due to bad crime and law enforcement policies. What's weird about this is that the Democratic party is very much for public transportation and in favor of limiting gun ownership, while, at the same time, supporting such lax crime policies that they drive people away from mass transport and towards having to think about owning cars and guns to protect themselves. This does not seem like a well thought-out framework at all. Two other thoughts. I think self driving cars might be the only hope the US has to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and create what I call a virtual mass transport system. If I could summon a car to come drive me to and from anywhere I want to go, I would likely not own a car or, to be sure, not drive it as much. Driving is a huge waste of time because it takes-up all of your attention. Self driving mini-buses could do a great job of enhancing a hub-and-spoke system that would pick-up people from suburban neighborhoods and facilitate transport through larger long distance buses or rail. The problem with mass rail in a place like Los Angeles is that I have to drive about an hour to be able to get on a train. There is no way that train is ever going to come closer to me. That's a non-starter. Second, the power and related power distribution requirement for full transition to EV's is very much real. We cannot make the transition with what we currently have. This, to me, implies a need for a plan that nobody is talking about, because we have become so cultish about certain things that logical thinking seems impossible. EV's require us to undertake massive construction projects in order to enhance the infrastructure. The cost of construction is deeply influence by the cost of everything derived from oil. Not just fuel. Thousands of products trace their origins and dependencies to that barrel of oil. Expensive oil means we, quite literally, cannot afford these projects. Again, this isn't trivial, we are talking about doubling our entire power infrastructure. If we had our heads screwed-on right and could leave ideology behind the solution would almost be self evident: 1- Create and agree on a plan for full electrification within a reasonable timeline. Being that the dependency is power generation, that timeline is likely in the 25 to 50 year range. 2- Set this as a national goal, with laws and changes to laws that will allow for this to happen. Removal of red tape is crucial. Construction projects need to be able to be completed in a few years, rather than decades. 3- Drill baby drill. We need oil at $20 per barrel. Less if possible. However, that's not for the sport of it. The objective is to light-up tons of infrastructure projects to enable that full migration to EV's. Cheap oil, when married to a solid plan, equally solid execution and the legal/regulatory framework to allow for efficient progress would enable the kinds of things we would need to do. If we could pull something like this off, in a few decades people would naturally migrate towards EV's. They would make sense because the infrastructure would be there. Oil and IC vehicles would naturally start to disappear as EV's would certainly become a better option. The kind of thing California is trying to do is dumb as shit. Mandating no IC vehicles in just eight years? There is no way the infrastructure is going to be anywhere close to ready in eight years. We already suffer from blackouts. The only thing this forced transition is going to do is sell a shit-ton of IC cars the year before the mandate goes into effect. People are going to make a mad scramble to upgrade their cars or buy new IC cars before they can no-longer buy them in CA. You just can't do things that way. The scale is massive. You have to have a wholistic plan that addresses as many of the variables as possible. That requires a little more thought than cheap political stunts.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
US net power generation is 400GW. You're talking about increasing it six-fold (or 20-fold) with the most expensive option. Yes, it's absurd. > Take a city like Los Angeles. It is, quite literally, impossible to replace individually-driven vehicles with mass transport. You just can't do it. You would have to tear-up half the city to be able to provide enough granularity for people to actually want to ride mass transport. You already did it once to force people into cars. And luckily you don't need redlining to get rid of highways. It's far more feasible than committing 10s or 100s of trillions to reactors that can't physically exist. > Self driving mini-buses could do a great job of enhancing a hub-and-spoke system that would pick-up people from suburban neighborhoods and facilitate transport through larger long distance buses or rail. It's called a trolley bus (or automated light rail). And most of california's population already had access to it once without "full self driving next year" for decades. Also I love your conception of possibility as "I think it would be convenient for me personally to do this thing" rather than the physical existence of enough U235
- robomartin 4y ago
  > US net power generation is 400GW Not sure where this number comes from. It's 1200 GW. https://www.publicpower.org/resource/americas-electricity-generating-capacity https://www.publicpower.org/resource/americas-electricity-ge... > You already did it once to force people into cars. And luckily you don't need redlining to get rid of highways. Impossible. You are starting to sound like you don't live in the US. Perhaps you don't understand just how hard it is to get anything done here? > It's called a trolley bus (or automated light rail). And most of california's population already had access to it once without "full self driving next year" for decades. Also impossible. It's a reality. Sorry. > Also I love your conception of possibility as "I think it would be convenient for me personally to do this thing" rather than the physical existence of enough U235 How about you don't resort to insults and discuss facts instead? TWO DECADES AGO a research report from MIT concluded that, at that time, we had more than enough uranium ore to power a thousand reactors for 50 years. Since then we have gotten very good at extracting uranium from other sources as well as recycling. I don't think we have a problem. The question is: How much power do we need? Once that is answered, we need to decide on what assortment of nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal and, likely, fossil generation approaches we need to use over time to provide what's needed. No single technology can cover all of it. Nuclear is likely to have to play a more significant role than most people think. How much? I have no clue. There's politics involved too, so, feel free to guess.