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I don't think the horse and carriage is a valid parallel. Back then they weren't using petrol to power people's homes and industries. The internal combustion engine was completely new, using a fuel that wasn't widely in use already. Remember it won over electric horseless carriages. It's not like it ran on hay and people already had trouble getting enough hay for their horses. But that's the situation we are in today. We are switching cars to an energy source that's already widely in use and we already have issues powering everything today that depends on it. The power outages are already happening around here in California today, because the grid can't handle the existing demand. Not to mention that the national electric grid was never designed to last this long. Not sure if people are aware of this, but it's way past its originally planned lifetime. Multiple times over actually.
Not saying we won't get there, but it's likely we won't rebuild the grid in the next 13 years. California couldn't even build a new Bay Bridge in less than 20 years.
Well then, how many gas stations were around when the first horseless carriages hit the (dirt) roads?
I don't think the horse and carriage is a valid parallel. Back then they weren't using petrol to power people's homes and industries. The internal combustion engine was completely new, using a fuel that wasn't widely in use already. Remember it won over electric horseless carriages. It's not like it ran on hay and people already had trouble getting enough hay for their horses. But that's the situation we are in today. We are switching cars to an energy source that's already widely in use and we already have issues powering everything today that depends on it. The power outages are already happening around here in California today, because the grid can't handle the existing demand. Not to mention that the national electric grid was never designed to last this long. Not sure if people are aware of this, but it's way past its originally planned lifetime. Multiple times over actually.
Not saying we won't get there, but it's likely we won't rebuild the grid in the next 13 years. California couldn't even build a new Bay Bridge in less than 20 years.
You don't need to rebuild the grid to support the new demand pattern, because some chunk of the new demand pattern will go off the grid. California has over 44% of homes with Solar now, and over 90% of new homes have solar. Batteries are also picking up with all these grid issues.
I for one am building a house right now which will have Tesla solar, Tesla power walls, and a Cummins Generator enabling me to be totally off the grid, even with 3 EVs. You will see more people going in this direction as the economics get better, and people get tired of relying on aging infrastructure.
You don't need to rebuild the grid to support the new demand pattern, because some chunk of the new demand pattern will go off the grid. California has over 44% of homes with Solar now, and over 90% of new homes have solar. Batteries are also picking up with all these grid issues.
I for one am building a house right now which will have Tesla solar, Tesla power walls, and a Cummins Generator enabling me to be totally off the grid, even with 3 EVs. You will see more people going in this direction as the economics get better, and people get tired of relying on aging infrastructure.
Don't forget, how much electricity do gas stations use? Not much? Ever been to a Buc-ees? haha!
You don't need to rebuild the grid to support the new demand pattern, because some chunk of the new demand pattern will go off the grid. California has over 44% of homes with Solar now, and over 90% of new homes have solar. Batteries are also picking up with all these grid issues.
I for one am building a house right now which will have Tesla solar, Tesla power walls, and a Cummins Generator enabling me to be totally off the grid, even with 3 EVs. You will see more people going in this direction as the economics get better, and people get tired of relying on aging infrastructure.
Where did you get those numbers? California has over 40% of all small solar installations in the USA, but there are about 14.5 million residential homes in California and only 1.3 million have solar. I believe those are 2020 numbers. That's a far cry from 44%. How do you come up with 44%? I think you misread the statistics. Less than 10% of homes in California have solar. It's worse in other states. BTW, it took 25 years to reach 1.3 million. The program to encourage solar was launched in 1995.
Yes all new homes built in California must have solar now, but that only reduces new demand. It doesn't reduce demand in existing homes. The economics and incentives are not there yet to retrofit existing homes with solar. So if I get an EV living in a existing home I first have to spend thousands more to install solar in order to not put more demand on the grid. Then the next question is how many miles do I actually have to drive for the solar installation to pay for itself before I need to replace the panels and start all over.
I've considered installing solar on my home, but the numbers just don't add up. It'd take over 20 years for them to pay for themselves and then I likely have to replace the panels. Maybe once I get an EV, but then it depends on how much I actually drive. As it stands I don't drive on most days of the week, so there's that. You know you can also help the climate by driving less. I work from home instead of commuting 100s of miles every week.
Last edited by superswiss; 09-01-2022 at 01:16 AM.
08-31-2022, 09:34 PM
