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To: Sam Gamgee

“NO ONE advocating electric cars ever wants to speak to [electricity production]”

I address it frequently.

First off, scale: we’re talking the equivalent of 10-30 hundred-watt light bulbs lit overnight.

There’s lots of off-peak unused capacity already in the system which producers are begging customers to use. That will cover a LOT of EVs for starters.
Home electricity use is dropping. The requirement to end use of incandescents, along with other high-efficiency changes, means home power use is dropping 50-90%. Producers would like to keep selling electricity, with their production capacity not diminishing.
Electricity can be produced from many different sources.
There’s a reason Musk started Solar City and rolled it into Tesla (ya think?). Price of a “solar roof” system capable of mostly powering your car is about the price of the car (not cheap up front, but gives you nearly complete off-grid driving capability).
As demand for gasoline per se diminishes, that industry will seek new customers - say, local electricity generation.
Fuel cell tech is improving, increasingly making use of hydrocarbon fuels.
Several major meta-manufacturers are looking for customers for “safe & cheap” compact nuclear power systems.
Methinks between all of those, we can sort out powering EVs. Not like the need will be overnight.

And remember: wasn’t all that long ago that gas stations were few & far between, and naysayers complained “there’s no gas where you’re going!”

Funny thing capitalism: given a demand, a supply will arise.


289 posted on 10/17/2017 3:34:10 PM PDT by ctdonath2 (It's not "white privilege", it's "Puritan work ethic". Behavior begets consequences.)
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To: ctdonath2
I have never heard of that 50% figure before. I thought we were using like 3 times to power use of the late 70s due to the personal computer age.
341 posted on 10/18/2017 2:06:01 PM PDT by Sam Gamgee
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To: ctdonath2

You can’t store that unused capacity?


342 posted on 10/18/2017 2:07:05 PM PDT by Sam Gamgee
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