Posted on 08/10/2023 6:32:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hint: It’s not fossil fuels. It’s not nuclear power. It’s not even wind or solar, although the state will undoubtedly keep expanding both.
The answer? California’s largest electric utility PG&E wants to suck the batteries of electric-vehicle owners plugged into charging stations to stabilize the grid during unstable periods. The Ford F-150 already allows for bidirectional charging, but that was sold as a benefit to the owner as a kind of independent generator for households during blackouts. PG&E wants to use it to commandeer all EV batteries and use their power to prevent grid collapse:
It’s been said before, California’s power grid will have to expand in order to meet the demand for more energy. PG&E’s CEO Patricia Poppe has come up with an “unconventional” idea, using electric cars to send excess power back to the grid to prevent blackouts. …
Lawmakers in Sacramento are helping to move things along. For example, Senate Bill 233 would make bi-directional charging mandatory for all new electric vehicles.
Now the question is how quickly can that electrical connection be up and running in any ordinary home to make vehicle-to-grid a reality.
Does anyone see the problem here? California’s power grid is destabilizing for a number of reasons, mainly from nonsensical and hypocritical public policies. Chief among those are (a) a refusal to use scalable power sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear) for demand at current levels, and (b) forcing Californians to transfer their vehicles to the grid rather than use gasoline for independent power, thus escalating demand on the grid dramatically.
This proposal doesn’t solve either of those problems. It instead creates a kind of three-card Monty with the grid — shifting power to the vehicles, and then pulling it back when the state decides to apply it elsewhere. It’s only an illusion of a solution; no additional power gets created. PG&E and the state would simply confiscate that power for their own uses as they see fit. Technically, the grid would operate more efficiently if it never charged the EVs at all, considering the inevitable power losses that would take place in regional “bidirectional charging.”
It’s the ultimate in authoritarian redistribution — no real production, and lots of opportunity for losses and scarcity rationing.
And what does that mean for car owners? PG&E argues that cars are parked 95% of the time, a rationalization for energy seizure which may be true but is irrelevant. The issue for car owners is having the car function the (arguable) 5% of the time they need to travel — to work, school, social functions, and commerce.
What happens when car owners wake up in the morning to go to work to find that their car has been drained overnight to “stabilize the grid”? What happens when they all plug them in at the same time to get them charged enough to go to work? Wouldn’t that sudden demand destabilize the grid?
Nor is that the only issue for car owners in this new proposal. Unlike gas tanks, which can last for decades, batteries have a finite number of charge/discharge cycles before they begin to fail. Bloomberg noted that concern near the end of their otherwise sunny report on this idea:
Utilities will need to offer drivers incentives, such as paying them for the kilowatt hours they contribute. One study estimates ratepayers could save as much as $1 billion a year from using the technology.
However, some EV owners have reservations about the potential impacts on their car battery’s lifespan, while concerns linger about the installation adding an estimated $3,700 to an EV’s cost, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? This proposal would cost consumers more, shorten the lives of their already-too-expensive vehicles, with the only benefit to consumers being a refund for power they bought to charge the car the first time — which they would have to spend again to charge it after PG&E drains it. I’d bet that consumers won’t even get a full refund for that power use, and that PG&E ends up profiting from the charge/discharge/recharge cycle. Amazingly, neither Bloomberg nor ABC7 even thinks about that issue, let alone investigates it to any extent at all. Bloomberg just passes along the happy talk about A Billion Dollars In Savings!! without wondering how consumers will use their cars without buying the same power twice with those “savings” — and likely more.
There’s nothing wrong with owning an EV if you choose to do so. This, however, isn’t a choice. California is forcing its citizens into EVs, mandating the end of gasoline-powered personal vehicle sales in the next decade, and is already planning to exploit its monopoly on vehicle energy for its own ends. This proposal in particular exploits that monopoly to cover up the insane and destructive energy policies of the Democrat government monopoly in Sacramento. Internal combustion vehicles and their decentralized, independent power sourcing are still the best choice for freedom — which is why California Democrats want to eradicate them.
The author of this article knows nothing about the energy system. This is a great idea.
The main issue with power is we need to build everything for peak usage at 7pm. Every other time of day there is vast wastage.
Imagine if your EV can buy $10 of cheap electricity over night, and sell it for $20 once you get home each evening.
It makes having a battery pack in your garage very profitable.
And when you suck the juice out of that electric car, you gonna pay them for it?
“I now live in a mobile home, and you can’t spend even an hour in it if the air isn’t on.”
Well, you can, but you’ll start having visions, and maybe see your ancestors. An Indian told me about it...
I don't even like the "Auto Idle Stop" on my car. If my car is stopped it can turn off the engine and then start it again when I lift my foot from the brake. I can turn that system off, but it always comes back on when I turn off the car. I don't want the extra wear and tear on my battery, starter and engine to save a few drops of gas, so I try to remember to hit the button every time I start the engine. There is at least one aftermarket solution which electrically duplicates the button press after you start the car.
To get DC batteries into an AC grid the alternating current has to be synchronized.
The batteries already have a shorter life than the rest of the car. If the batteries were cheaply available, the state or power companies could buy their own batteries. Since they feel the need to draft your car to fight the war on carbon, it seems pretty clear that this is not cost effective.
There will be no where cool to go.
Well politicians homes and offices but you won’t be allowed in.
Show me a liberal, any liberal, and I’ll show you the dumbest MF on the planet.
Until the extra cycles of the battery render it useless.
Maybe they can mount windmills on top of trains too
Nope, sorry, nothing there.
The "experts" said don't charge the car soooo...
Beep beep, waving goodbye!
.
Residential grids are destined for collapse even without the proposal.
People will recharge their EV at work using cheap day solar electricity and run their home at night off their EV and during the day their home will use solar panels. People will go off-grid at home.
People of California, Keep voting liberal, it is working great !
Sucking the solar-powered houses next I am ssure
That’s it, l want to wake up now. I have had enough of this nightmare.
Government will make our lives as costly, complicated and miserable as possible. They want total 100% control over you and every thing you own...Or rent...Directed and produced by those who now see us us as heavy luggage, fat consumers, resource rapist and polluters...
Well this is certainly giving the Your Range May Vary exclamation marks!
Even better is a stick shift...pop it out of gear and coast to the stop sign in idle......My 1978 F100 ticks over at about 300 rpm.
So, when you hop in your EV and it won’t run, does a PG&E IOU pop up on the screen? “Sorry, Charlie, we needed your battery juice more than you. You can bicycle or ride the bus to work today.”
Dragon farms?
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