Maybe we need to think outside the car.
Uh, those of us in the STEM field have been saying this for quite a while. Add to this the fact that in many areas, the grid is loaded almost to max capacity during some parts of the day.
We’ll not mention the environmental costs of mining all that rare earth battery material. Or disposal costs.
Etc.
Although, that Mach E is beginning to tickle my fancy.
I work for a large regional power supplier. I’ve been saying for a long time that if a significant people are plugging in cars, well, we don’t have the grid to handle it. And if you are serious about electic cars, you are a proponent of building lots of nuclear plants.
It’s really just that simple.
Does anybody ever consider just how much electric energy it takes to push a two ton vehicle down the road?
Well, duh! He only figured this out now?
Double? Try again.
Time to build a dozen or so 500 GW nuke plants, allow breeder reactors and reprocessing, and open Yucca Mountain.
Those actions would eliminate most power issues for decades if not longer.
Why don’t they dump the blades in the ocean?
Not going to happen until nuclear fusion.
Till then electric cars are garbage and will be junked before there is “clean” energy for any of them.
Someone finally showed him the energy balance
Coal is missing from the mix? He's nuts if he thinks nukes will get built. And geothermal is a boutique source that doesn't amount to a hill of unicorn farts.
It is IMPOSSIBLE, ABSOLUTELY FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE to meet our energy needs with solar and wind. It is too diffuse and way too expensive to capture in large quantities.
It only makes economic sense if you force all of your neighbors in your state pay exorbitant taxes to subsidize your little power plant toys with tax breaks. But there isn't enough subsidy cash in the universe to replace conventional generation.
The solution to electric vehicles is roof mounted wind turbines on every electric car.
It’s what we have said for years. The energy required to plug in 100 million cars a day is far greater than what we have currently. We would need probably five hundred to a thousand new nuclear power plants. And that will require increased amperage capacity for the entire power grid.
Electric is NOT the future,
Glad he mentioned nuclear.
Elon Musk has created and demonstrated a viable space transportation system. How about expanding it into an actual space station of his own, complete with solar satellite panels?
The idea's been around for decades. At first it was just an object in orbit that collected sunlight, concentrated it, and beamed it to earth for collection - an enormous convex mirror. The sunlight boiled water to run steam turbines, just like any other power plant, but no fuel was needed, just sunlight.
This idea never got off the ground, because of startup costs and the danger to birds and aircraft. The idea was refined to lose the mirror, collecting sunlight in solar panels instead, which would be beamed to earth via microwave - much more elegant and safer.
Unlimited electric power on demand - that's an idea that might appeal to Elon Musk. He's not afraid to spend money, a whole pile of it, to reap such an unlimited reward. Maybe it's time to run the numbers again?
Elon can do math.
This will make him an enemy of the people.
Nuclear or Nothing, the Global Warmists and enviro’s need to put up or shut up.
Really?
This was your plan. Years into your drive to swap out ICE
cars, this is where you wind up?
Wow, this verges on illiteracy.
The article also discusses the extensive mining and chemical processing requirements to make all those batteries. He says there’s no free lunch.