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It will be several decades before a combination of renewable overcapacity and energy storage can meet any increase in demand for electricity. In the mean time,

It will be several decades before a combination of renewable overcapacity and energy storage can meet any increase in demand for electricity. In the mean time, anything that causes an increase in demand, such as electric cars, will be met with an equal amount of additional coal or natural gas supply. This means electric cars in the US are 100% fossil fuel powered, and the Model 3 only has a ~20% smaller carbon footprints than average gas powered cars and a slightly larger carbon footprint than the gas powered Toyota Prius Hybrid. EV subsidies have mostly lined the pockets of wealthy luxury car buyers who would have bought an EV anyway. Those subsidies would have reduced emissions far more if the subsidies had gone to making economy hybrids the same price as non-hybrids.

virtue3 3y ago
Another point to consider here. Even if EVs are powered by fossil fuels. A powerplan producing electricity and transmitting it to your house is orders of magnitude more efficient than generating energy from gasoline in a motorvehicle using an internal combustion engine. Also we can curb emissions at the power plant and track them dramatically easier. And more EVs does not mean more power plants turning on per se. Most EVs are charged at night when power usage drops dramatically (and when you get cheaper rates on your electricity). The real answer here is using more green house gas free power options like nuclear and solar and wind. I doubt we'll see much nuclear in the near future because it is so cheap to create solar and wind farms at this point and there's dramatically less risk despite it being dramatically less productive.
- deleted 3y ago
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- kyrra 3y ago
  EVs generate a bunch more carbon during their manufacturing process. > As of 2022, Woodley's research showed that aggregate use of EVs below 55,749 miles may — in the U.S., at least — fail to generate any emissions benefit over gas-powered vehicles. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/when-buying-an-ev-increases-your-carbon-footprint/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/when-buying-a... Also, If we end up using coal to charge an electric vehicle, its carbon emissions are actually higher than that of can you an ICE vehicle. Then if you have to replace the battery on your EV, that will reset some of that carbon offset.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    A Tesla Model 3 has a lower carbon footprint than an Toyota Corolla after 13,500 miles per Argonne National Labs (vs a Harvard puff piece). Only 20% of electricity in the US is generated with coal, and phaseout continues at speed. There is over 1TW of renewables in US interconnect queues. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38243912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38243912 (citations) https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/01/us-coal-electricity-dropped-in-2022-down-to-20-of-us-electricity/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/01/us-coal-electricity-dro... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55439 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55439 https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-interconnection-queues-as-wait-times-continue-to-grow/ https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-inter...
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Correction: “The United States has at least 1,350 GW of wind and solar capacity and 680 GW of storage is waiting to be connected, which is enough to double the country’s electricity supply.” https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/12/08/solar-lcoe-now-29-lower-than-any-fuel-fossil-option-says-ey/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/12/08/solar-lcoe-now-29-low...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - idontwantthis 3y ago
    This is so boring stop.
    - p1necone 3y ago
      Expect the FUD to get more and more unhinged as it becomes harder and harder to for anyone not either malicious or stupid to believe it.
      - idontwantthis 3y ago
        BRB I’m gonna go build a new coal plant because my neighbor got a polestar.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
  >And more EVs does not mean more power plants turning on per se. Most EVs are charged at night when power usage drops dramatically Consider: Scenario A: 1,000,000 EVs are put on the road. Scenario B: 1,000,000 gas cars are put on the road. Scenario A: 100% of zero carbon energy is consumed by existing demand. Remaining demand is met by fossil fuels including the energy needed to power the 1,000,000 EVs. Scenario B: 100% of zero carbon energy is consumed by existing demand. Remaining demand is met by fossil fuels, not including the energy to power additional EVs. In Scenario A, more energy is generated by fossil fuels by exactly the amount of energy used to charge the EVs. In the US, at no point in time, day or night, summer or winter does any zero carbon energy go to waste. So increasing demand means more fossil fuels being burned.
  - jayd16 3y ago
    > In the US, at no point in time, day or night, summer or winter does any zero carbon energy go to waste. So increasing demand means more fossil fuels being burned. Are you just forgetting the part where there's less gasoline demand or any efficiency differences?
    - goodSteveramos 3y ago
      Yes. Those two factors are completely irrelevant for calculating the source of electric power used to charge new EVs. Gasoline demand and efficiency differences are instead captured in the carbon footprint estimates.
      - jayd16 3y ago
        But you yourself estimate 20% savings and then hand wave that away under "fossil fuels."
        goodSteveramos 3y ago
        I have no idea what you are trying to say.
  - 3y ago
- nwiswell 3y ago
  > orders of magnitude more efficient This is simply not true. It's more efficient, but a typical gasoline car gets around 20% efficiency (large diesel trucks can be significantly greater). A modern, state of the art combined cycle natural gas fired power plant is only up to around 60% efficient. There's some additional loss for distribution, charging the EV battery, and in the electric motor, but it's not large and you're probably about 50% efficient overall. Another win is that natural gas emits around 25% less CO2 than gasoline per unit of energy. And of course if you're powering your car with solar, then that's much better. Anyway, thermal efficiency is on the order of 2.5x better, not "orders of magnitude".
ori_b 3y ago
A modern combined cycle power plant is significantly more efficient than a typical internal combustion engine, even when taking into account transmission losses. So, an EV is going to use less fossil fuel per mile, even if the power plant is fully fossil fuel based. On top of that, per megawatt, building out new solar is cheaper than keeping existing coal plants running. The solar transition is largely constrained by the duck curve, which can be mitigated using v2g technology, so as time passes, the power sources get greener out of purely economic considerations. As long as you're not throwing out brand new ICE vehicles and just replacing worn out ones, both the TCO and the total carbon footprint goes down when switching to EVs.
jayd16 3y ago
No way they are "100% fossil fuel powered" when, for example, 20% of US power is nuclear. If you're just going to throw out something like that so casually, why should I believe any of it?
- User23 3y ago
  Nuclear power is used to provide baseline grid capacity. You can't just burn more or less uranium/plutonium as demand changes with the reactors that are in service. On the margins the surge demand largely comes from hydrocarbons, because you can just burn more or less coal, oil, or gas. Thus electric vehicles that tax the grid are going to result in new power being added as needed, and it will be nearly all from hydrocarbons.
  - myself248 3y ago
    Most EVs charge at night, which is typically the time of lowest grid demand, and used to set the operating point of base-load plants like nuclear and coal. Raising the demand at night will disproportionately come from nuclear, and if anything by raising the baseline, it'll mean those nuclear plants are running more around the clock _decreasing_ the amount of gas peakers needed during the day.
    - goodSteveramos 3y ago
      This is totally wrong. Nuclear has a very low marginal operating cost and to maximize return on investment Nuclear plants run at 100% of their allowed output irrespective of demand. Increases in the price of baseload power are unlikely as intermittent sources like wind and solar contribute a higher fraction of power. In particular, midday solar output will lower the baseload far below the current low point at night.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    You can, however, charge your EV at night. Natural gas and hydro work well with nuclear, you can fire them up at peak and wind them down at night. Bonus if you can do pumped storage using extra power at night from the nuclear plant, but I don't hear that happening much in practice.
p1necone 3y ago
> It will be several decades before a combination of renewable overcapacity and energy storage can meet any increase in demand for electricity. In the mean time, anything that causes an increase in demand, such as electric cars, will be met with an equal amount of additional coal or natural gas supply. There's a lot wrong with this comment, but this bit especially is just made up nonsense. According to [1] 39.7% of USA energy generation on average is already either renewables or nuclear, and as other commenters have pointed out even if it was 100% coal including transmission losses it would still be more efficient than petrol in an ICE. And saying that all additional power production built in the US grid will be 100% coal or natural gas for the next two decades is a bizarre claim. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
  >And saying that all additional power production built in the US grid will be 100% coal or natural gas for the next two decades is a bizarre claim. The electricity grid has something called a Capacity Factor. Capacity is the ability to produce power measured in Watts. The Capactiy Factor is the fraction of capacity which is actually producing that power at any instant in time. Power demand and supply must be almost exactly in sync at all times to maintain grid stability. This is achieved by turning on and off coal and natural gas power stations, which can be done relatively quickly, to ramp up and ramp down production as demand fluctuates. Capacity must always greatly exceed typical demand so that unusually high demand can be met. Nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric power plants always produce whatever power they can independent of demand. This is for a diverse set of safety and environmental reasons. Only fossil fuel plants can "load follow" to meet changes in demand. Like I stated in my original comment, all load following in the US is done with fossil fuels, and that will be the case for many years or several decades to come. Increases in capacity will mostly come from carbon free sources, but until those sources can load follow, either by dumping unused energy in off-peak hours or by storing that energy until it is needed, all load following will be done with fossil fuels. This means additional demand is going to be met entirely with fossil fuels for a long time to come. I hope that helps you understand the concept of marginal demand better.

virtue3 3y ago

Another point to consider here. Even if EVs are powered by fossil fuels. A powerplan producing electricity and transmitting it to your house is orders of magnitude more efficient than generating energy from gasoline in a motorvehicle using an internal combustion engine. Also we can curb emissions at the power plant and track them dramatically easier. And more EVs does not mean more power plants turning on per se. Most EVs are charged at night when power usage drops dramatically (and when you get cheaper rates on your electricity). The real answer here is using more green house gas free power options like nuclear and solar and wind. I doubt we'll see much nuclear in the near future because it is so cheap to create solar and wind farms at this point and there's dramatically less risk despite it being dramatically less productive.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kyrra 3y ago
EVs generate a bunch more carbon during their manufacturing process. > As of 2022, Woodley's research showed that aggregate use of EVs below 55,749 miles may — in the U.S., at least — fail to generate any emissions benefit over gas-powered vehicles. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/when-buying-an-ev-increases-your-carbon-footprint/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/when-buying-a... Also, If we end up using coal to charge an electric vehicle, its carbon emissions are actually higher than that of can you an ICE vehicle. Then if you have to replace the battery on your EV, that will reset some of that carbon offset.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  A Tesla Model 3 has a lower carbon footprint than an Toyota Corolla after 13,500 miles per Argonne National Labs (vs a Harvard puff piece). Only 20% of electricity in the US is generated with coal, and phaseout continues at speed. There is over 1TW of renewables in US interconnect queues. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38243912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38243912 (citations) https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/01/us-coal-electricity-dropped-in-2022-down-to-20-of-us-electricity/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/01/us-coal-electricity-dro... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55439 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55439 https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-interconnection-queues-as-wait-times-continue-to-grow/ https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-inter...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Correction: “The United States has at least 1,350 GW of wind and solar capacity and 680 GW of storage is waiting to be connected, which is enough to double the country’s electricity supply.” https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/12/08/solar-lcoe-now-29-lower-than-any-fuel-fossil-option-says-ey/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/12/08/solar-lcoe-now-29-low...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  This is so boring stop.
  - p1necone 3y ago
    Expect the FUD to get more and more unhinged as it becomes harder and harder to for anyone not either malicious or stupid to believe it.
    - idontwantthis 3y ago
      BRB I’m gonna go build a new coal plant because my neighbor got a polestar.
goodSteveramos 3y ago
>And more EVs does not mean more power plants turning on per se. Most EVs are charged at night when power usage drops dramatically Consider: Scenario A: 1,000,000 EVs are put on the road. Scenario B: 1,000,000 gas cars are put on the road. Scenario A: 100% of zero carbon energy is consumed by existing demand. Remaining demand is met by fossil fuels including the energy needed to power the 1,000,000 EVs. Scenario B: 100% of zero carbon energy is consumed by existing demand. Remaining demand is met by fossil fuels, not including the energy to power additional EVs. In Scenario A, more energy is generated by fossil fuels by exactly the amount of energy used to charge the EVs. In the US, at no point in time, day or night, summer or winter does any zero carbon energy go to waste. So increasing demand means more fossil fuels being burned.
- jayd16 3y ago
  > In the US, at no point in time, day or night, summer or winter does any zero carbon energy go to waste. So increasing demand means more fossil fuels being burned. Are you just forgetting the part where there's less gasoline demand or any efficiency differences?
  - goodSteveramos 3y ago
    Yes. Those two factors are completely irrelevant for calculating the source of electric power used to charge new EVs. Gasoline demand and efficiency differences are instead captured in the carbon footprint estimates.
    - jayd16 3y ago
      But you yourself estimate 20% savings and then hand wave that away under "fossil fuels."
      - goodSteveramos 3y ago
        I have no idea what you are trying to say.
- 3y ago
nwiswell 3y ago
> orders of magnitude more efficient This is simply not true. It's more efficient, but a typical gasoline car gets around 20% efficiency (large diesel trucks can be significantly greater). A modern, state of the art combined cycle natural gas fired power plant is only up to around 60% efficient. There's some additional loss for distribution, charging the EV battery, and in the electric motor, but it's not large and you're probably about 50% efficient overall. Another win is that natural gas emits around 25% less CO2 than gasoline per unit of energy. And of course if you're powering your car with solar, then that's much better. Anyway, thermal efficiency is on the order of 2.5x better, not "orders of magnitude".

ori_b 3y ago

A modern combined cycle power plant is significantly more efficient than a typical internal combustion engine, even when taking into account transmission losses. So, an EV is going to use less fossil fuel per mile, even if the power plant is fully fossil fuel based. On top of that, per megawatt, building out new solar is cheaper than keeping existing coal plants running. The solar transition is largely constrained by the duck curve, which can be mitigated using v2g technology, so as time passes, the power sources get greener out of purely economic considerations. As long as you're not throwing out brand new ICE vehicles and just replacing worn out ones, both the TCO and the total carbon footprint goes down when switching to EVs.

jayd16 3y ago

No way they are "100% fossil fuel powered" when, for example, 20% of US power is nuclear. If you're just going to throw out something like that so casually, why should I believe any of it?

User23 3y ago
Nuclear power is used to provide baseline grid capacity. You can't just burn more or less uranium/plutonium as demand changes with the reactors that are in service. On the margins the surge demand largely comes from hydrocarbons, because you can just burn more or less coal, oil, or gas. Thus electric vehicles that tax the grid are going to result in new power being added as needed, and it will be nearly all from hydrocarbons.
- myself248 3y ago
  Most EVs charge at night, which is typically the time of lowest grid demand, and used to set the operating point of base-load plants like nuclear and coal. Raising the demand at night will disproportionately come from nuclear, and if anything by raising the baseline, it'll mean those nuclear plants are running more around the clock _decreasing_ the amount of gas peakers needed during the day.
  - goodSteveramos 3y ago
    This is totally wrong. Nuclear has a very low marginal operating cost and to maximize return on investment Nuclear plants run at 100% of their allowed output irrespective of demand. Increases in the price of baseload power are unlikely as intermittent sources like wind and solar contribute a higher fraction of power. In particular, midday solar output will lower the baseload far below the current low point at night.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You can, however, charge your EV at night. Natural gas and hydro work well with nuclear, you can fire them up at peak and wind them down at night. Bonus if you can do pumped storage using extra power at night from the nuclear plant, but I don't hear that happening much in practice.

p1necone 3y ago

> It will be several decades before a combination of renewable overcapacity and energy storage can meet any increase in demand for electricity. In the mean time, anything that causes an increase in demand, such as electric cars, will be met with an equal amount of additional coal or natural gas supply. There's a lot wrong with this comment, but this bit especially is just made up nonsense. According to [1] 39.7% of USA energy generation on average is already either renewables or nuclear, and as other commenters have pointed out even if it was 100% coal including transmission losses it would still be more efficient than petrol in an ICE. And saying that all additional power production built in the US grid will be 100% coal or natural gas for the next two decades is a bizarre claim. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

goodSteveramos 3y ago
>And saying that all additional power production built in the US grid will be 100% coal or natural gas for the next two decades is a bizarre claim. The electricity grid has something called a Capacity Factor. Capacity is the ability to produce power measured in Watts. The Capactiy Factor is the fraction of capacity which is actually producing that power at any instant in time. Power demand and supply must be almost exactly in sync at all times to maintain grid stability. This is achieved by turning on and off coal and natural gas power stations, which can be done relatively quickly, to ramp up and ramp down production as demand fluctuates. Capacity must always greatly exceed typical demand so that unusually high demand can be met. Nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric power plants always produce whatever power they can independent of demand. This is for a diverse set of safety and environmental reasons. Only fossil fuel plants can "load follow" to meet changes in demand. Like I stated in my original comment, all load following in the US is done with fossil fuels, and that will be the case for many years or several decades to come. Increases in capacity will mostly come from carbon free sources, but until those sources can load follow, either by dumping unused energy in off-peak hours or by storing that energy until it is needed, all load following will be done with fossil fuels. This means additional demand is going to be met entirely with fossil fuels for a long time to come. I hope that helps you understand the concept of marginal demand better.