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I did the math for California awhile back, assuming a complete replacement of ICE vehicles with EVs, given the current state of the EV art. We would need 43,00

I did the math for California awhile back, assuming a complete replacement of ICE vehicles with EVs, given the current state of the EV art. We would need 43,000 GWh/y of new electricity generation for CA alone (15m cars * .24 KWh/m * 12,000 annual miles). For reference CA has a yearly electricity generation capacity of just under 200k GWh/y, and imports another 100k GWh/y. So it's not just rapid charging load concerns, but overall generation capacity which will need to be addressed. ref. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/electric-generation-capacity-and-energy https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

ericmay 4y ago
We are just going to have to move away from car-only infrastructure. Costs are way too high for negligible benefits. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a car or a big truck. But driving will not be your main form of transportation for daily life. The question isn’t if this will be the case, it’s whether we will manage how it occurs or how much of a shock it will be if we don’t.
- falcolas 4y ago
  It's much more realistic, especially in the US with its absurdly low average population density, to switch to EVs than it is to retrofit the entire country to not rely on vehicles. I don't think the "change all of our infrastructure" option is even realistic, to be honest. We can barely maintain our existing infrastructure in too many cases, let alone rebuild it all.
  - rdl 4y ago
    Fewer trips (no daily commute for many, delivery vs. shopping, etc.) seems like the likely way to reduce demand.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Even if you cut every driver's usage in half, it's still a hefty 21.5k GWh/y. Not an insignificant amount. EDIT: Corrected units from kWh/y to GWh/y.
      - vel0city 4y ago
        21.5KWh/yr is a rounding error compared to most US homes. Its $1.93 worth of electricity at my house. Tons of homes use ~1,000+kWh/month. There's also no way an average US EV would use 21.5kWh in a year, that's not even a month's worth of usage cut in half. I get about 3.5mi/kWh in my EV. If we cut the average yearly mileage about in half to ~6,000mi, that would be ~1,700kWh at my driving efficiency, plus a bit for charging losses. Even at 4.5mi/kWh it is still ~1,333kWh.
        falcolas 4y ago
        Sorry, switched G for k in my response. That's my bad. 43,000 GWh/y for all CA EVs at the average miles per year per vehicle. Total CA generation is 200,000 GWh/y.
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    (Tangential) How did you estimate the effort required in getting people to switch to EVs? Genuinely curious - I’ve been thinking lately about how much of the country seems to be ideologically resistant to any sort of progress. It’s an interesting problem to me, once you fold in people’s behaviors.
    - conk 4y ago
      Let market economics drive the behavior/buying decisions. Sure there are edge cases but for the most part EVs are more convient, comfortable, cleaner. The downsides are long recharge times during road trips and initial upfront costs. Studies show a lot of promise in improving charge speed and cost in the near future.
      - ericmay 4y ago
        > Let market economics drive the behavior/buying decisions. I think this makes sense, generally speaking, but the problem is that this isn't a "market" in the overall sense, only in choosing between vehicles. Gas and oil infrastructure for example has a lot of government involvement, so will charging infrastructure. So you can't really let the market decide here because the competition isn't really there.
  - ackfoobar 4y ago
    > absurdly low average population density Do you mean the total population and the total land area? Doing the division that's an absurdly low number, but probably an irrelevant one. Most trips don't go that far. The real problematic "low density" is suburban neighbourhoods.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Population density is misleading. Vast majority live in urban and suburban areas. Urban areas can handle things just fine without cars (and really they need to stop catering to car transit, remove highways that go through downtowns, and eliminate parking options), suburbs just need to have zoning fixed so there are things like convenience stores or a local doctors office in your neighborhood. If you live in a rural area and want to drive a car everywhere that's perfectly fine, but we need to move away from focusing on what a small percentage of people do and focus on serving most people instead. Suburbanites will certainly oppose this as well, but eventually economic physics will force them to change their habits regardless of what they want. > We can barely maintain our existing infrastructure in too many cases, let alone rebuild it all. Right, which is why doubling down on cars is bananas. We already can't afford to maintain all of these roads, let alone build new ones or expand. Fortunately, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. Repurposing existing highways to initially allow for bus rapid transit alongside personal automobile transit, for example, can help. We probably need a nationwide moratorium on new road construction for 20-50 years to really get things back in a good state.
    - ackfoobar 4y ago
      > We already can't afford to maintain all of these roads and water treatment, and sewage system I can't help linking a NJB video when this topic comes up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI "the replacement cost of all infrastructure in Lafayette, something that you would expect to happen over about one generation, was about $32 billion. ... Yet the existing tax base was much less than that." --- I don't think it can change though, given that majority of the US lives in the suburbs. They can vote to stop you from changing their precious lifestyle. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33258087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33258087
      - ericmay 4y ago
        Yea... and I'm going to go ahead and state water and sewage treatment are way, way more important than adding another 5-lane highway so someone can live 40 miles away from where they work. For me again it's just a question of whether we will manage the change or whether it'll just be a big disaster.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
EV's mostly charge at night. Power stations curtail at night. Not curtailing at night will get you most of the generation capacity you need. Switching to solar AND switching to EV's is trickier, but since switching to solar adds electricity generation, it's part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
- falcolas 4y ago
  It's absolutely doable, and greener sources of energy would be the ideal way to do it. At the same time, it's worth noting how California has not increased its power generation by any major amount since 2001. Even as wind and solar pick up, nuclear and other power sources are decommissioned. This means that the increased generation requirements would still be a concern. Even if all it takes is for the existing power plants to switch to running all day around, it still means there will be an increase in non-power-plant materials needed: additional maintenance, fuel, personnel, storage, etc. TANSTAAFL, in other words.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    > TANSTAAFL Electricity is far from free, especially in California. That should be enough to pay for the marginal costs.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Ideally, sure. But if I was being cynical, I'd point out that the prices paid for electricity are not even sufficient to maintain the electrical infrastructure in CA - certainly not enough to stop the equipment from regularly starting fires. So something else (perhaps regulation on PG&E) is likely to be required.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
matthewdgreen 4y ago
Sorry for the bad calculations here, but 43,000 GWh/y means 4.9GW of new generation (this is assuming a capacity factor of 1), right? I’m just Googling around but I’ve seen capacity factor estimates at around 0.24 for CA utility-scale solar. Rounding, that’s about 20GW worth of name-plate installed utility solar capacity. I’m seeing estimates of $0.89 - $1.35/watt for building that solar. Which puts this cost around $17.8bn-$27bn in construction costs, which genuinely doesn’t seem that bad for a project as big as “electrifying all consumer transportation in a large state”? Obviously people will need to get used to charging their cars during the day, and this won’t be the only new power source. I’m worried I missed a division and I’m off by a factor of 100x somewhere :)
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
California (and everywhere else) is already trying to get to a net zero grid. California is aiming to get there by 2045, and 90% clean by 2035 and 95% by 2040 so in the next ten years it already needs to build enough renewable production to displace the 100k GWh/y that gas (and a smattering of other fossil sources) provides. So, it's not really a big deal. It's only currently planning to ban ICE sales in 2035 (though I think the EV transition will accelerate to the point that becomes moot).
dpierce9 4y ago
There is lots of behind the meter installed as well in CA which are not captured in the linked doc. Hard to find good numbers but CA senate estimates 20GW of nameplate. Assuming a 15% capacity factor that is 2/3 of that 43k GWh. They assume it will double by 2030. Even assuming your other numbers are correct on total energy needed, your conclusion doesn’t follow since more imports can be found (or more import capacity built). The western interconnect is regional but your analysis assumes state-level constraints.

ericmay 4y ago

We are just going to have to move away from car-only infrastructure. Costs are way too high for negligible benefits. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a car or a big truck. But driving will not be your main form of transportation for daily life. The question isn’t if this will be the case, it’s whether we will manage how it occurs or how much of a shock it will be if we don’t.

falcolas 4y ago
It's much more realistic, especially in the US with its absurdly low average population density, to switch to EVs than it is to retrofit the entire country to not rely on vehicles. I don't think the "change all of our infrastructure" option is even realistic, to be honest. We can barely maintain our existing infrastructure in too many cases, let alone rebuild it all.
- rdl 4y ago
  Fewer trips (no daily commute for many, delivery vs. shopping, etc.) seems like the likely way to reduce demand.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Even if you cut every driver's usage in half, it's still a hefty 21.5k GWh/y. Not an insignificant amount. EDIT: Corrected units from kWh/y to GWh/y.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      21.5KWh/yr is a rounding error compared to most US homes. Its $1.93 worth of electricity at my house. Tons of homes use ~1,000+kWh/month. There's also no way an average US EV would use 21.5kWh in a year, that's not even a month's worth of usage cut in half. I get about 3.5mi/kWh in my EV. If we cut the average yearly mileage about in half to ~6,000mi, that would be ~1,700kWh at my driving efficiency, plus a bit for charging losses. Even at 4.5mi/kWh it is still ~1,333kWh.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        Sorry, switched G for k in my response. That's my bad. 43,000 GWh/y for all CA EVs at the average miles per year per vehicle. Total CA generation is 200,000 GWh/y.
- edmundsauto 4y ago
  (Tangential) How did you estimate the effort required in getting people to switch to EVs? Genuinely curious - I’ve been thinking lately about how much of the country seems to be ideologically resistant to any sort of progress. It’s an interesting problem to me, once you fold in people’s behaviors.
  - conk 4y ago
    Let market economics drive the behavior/buying decisions. Sure there are edge cases but for the most part EVs are more convient, comfortable, cleaner. The downsides are long recharge times during road trips and initial upfront costs. Studies show a lot of promise in improving charge speed and cost in the near future.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      > Let market economics drive the behavior/buying decisions. I think this makes sense, generally speaking, but the problem is that this isn't a "market" in the overall sense, only in choosing between vehicles. Gas and oil infrastructure for example has a lot of government involvement, so will charging infrastructure. So you can't really let the market decide here because the competition isn't really there.
- ackfoobar 4y ago
  > absurdly low average population density Do you mean the total population and the total land area? Doing the division that's an absurdly low number, but probably an irrelevant one. Most trips don't go that far. The real problematic "low density" is suburban neighbourhoods.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Population density is misleading. Vast majority live in urban and suburban areas. Urban areas can handle things just fine without cars (and really they need to stop catering to car transit, remove highways that go through downtowns, and eliminate parking options), suburbs just need to have zoning fixed so there are things like convenience stores or a local doctors office in your neighborhood. If you live in a rural area and want to drive a car everywhere that's perfectly fine, but we need to move away from focusing on what a small percentage of people do and focus on serving most people instead. Suburbanites will certainly oppose this as well, but eventually economic physics will force them to change their habits regardless of what they want. > We can barely maintain our existing infrastructure in too many cases, let alone rebuild it all. Right, which is why doubling down on cars is bananas. We already can't afford to maintain all of these roads, let alone build new ones or expand. Fortunately, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. Repurposing existing highways to initially allow for bus rapid transit alongside personal automobile transit, for example, can help. We probably need a nationwide moratorium on new road construction for 20-50 years to really get things back in a good state.
  - ackfoobar 4y ago
    > We already can't afford to maintain all of these roads and water treatment, and sewage system I can't help linking a NJB video when this topic comes up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI "the replacement cost of all infrastructure in Lafayette, something that you would expect to happen over about one generation, was about $32 billion. ... Yet the existing tax base was much less than that." --- I don't think it can change though, given that majority of the US lives in the suburbs. They can vote to stop you from changing their precious lifestyle. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33258087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33258087
    - ericmay 4y ago
      Yea... and I'm going to go ahead and state water and sewage treatment are way, way more important than adding another 5-lane highway so someone can live 40 miles away from where they work. For me again it's just a question of whether we will manage the change or whether it'll just be a big disaster.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

EV's mostly charge at night. Power stations curtail at night. Not curtailing at night will get you most of the generation capacity you need. Switching to solar AND switching to EV's is trickier, but since switching to solar adds electricity generation, it's part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

falcolas 4y ago
It's absolutely doable, and greener sources of energy would be the ideal way to do it. At the same time, it's worth noting how California has not increased its power generation by any major amount since 2001. Even as wind and solar pick up, nuclear and other power sources are decommissioned. This means that the increased generation requirements would still be a concern. Even if all it takes is for the existing power plants to switch to running all day around, it still means there will be an increase in non-power-plant materials needed: additional maintenance, fuel, personnel, storage, etc. TANSTAAFL, in other words.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  > TANSTAAFL Electricity is far from free, especially in California. That should be enough to pay for the marginal costs.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Ideally, sure. But if I was being cynical, I'd point out that the prices paid for electricity are not even sufficient to maintain the electrical infrastructure in CA - certainly not enough to stop the equipment from regularly starting fires. So something else (perhaps regulation on PG&E) is likely to be required.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

matthewdgreen 4y ago

Sorry for the bad calculations here, but 43,000 GWh/y means 4.9GW of new generation (this is assuming a capacity factor of 1), right? I’m just Googling around but I’ve seen capacity factor estimates at around 0.24 for CA utility-scale solar. Rounding, that’s about 20GW worth of name-plate installed utility solar capacity. I’m seeing estimates of $0.89 - $1.35/watt for building that solar. Which puts this cost around $17.8bn-$27bn in construction costs, which genuinely doesn’t seem that bad for a project as big as “electrifying all consumer transportation in a large state”? Obviously people will need to get used to charging their cars during the day, and this won’t be the only new power source. I’m worried I missed a division and I’m off by a factor of 100x somewhere :)

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

California (and everywhere else) is already trying to get to a net zero grid. California is aiming to get there by 2045, and 90% clean by 2035 and 95% by 2040 so in the next ten years it already needs to build enough renewable production to displace the 100k GWh/y that gas (and a smattering of other fossil sources) provides. So, it's not really a big deal. It's only currently planning to ban ICE sales in 2035 (though I think the EV transition will accelerate to the point that becomes moot).

dpierce9 4y ago

There is lots of behind the meter installed as well in CA which are not captured in the linked doc. Hard to find good numbers but CA senate estimates 20GW of nameplate. Assuming a 15% capacity factor that is 2/3 of that 43k GWh. They assume it will double by 2030. Even assuming your other numbers are correct on total energy needed, your conclusion doesn’t follow since more imports can be found (or more import capacity built). The western interconnect is regional but your analysis assumes state-level constraints.