Even with 2.5 Million EVs on the road, total U.S. power generation goes down

[y_p_w]

Keep in mind they use coal, oil and natural gas to make electric, so they're going to have to go to nuclear because wind and solar won't cut it. So if they want to phase out coal, oil, and natural gas they better come up with a viable plan. At the moment the grid sucks, so they better sort that out too.

Natural gas isn't in any danger of being phased out. An important reason for coal being phased out is that natural gas has been cheaper for a long time and burns relatively clean. And strangely enough, the reason why natural gas prices went down was fracking. Oil makes for very little electricity output.

 

[y_p_w]

Our CA aging grid had a lot of brown and black outs before EV became popular. There were a lot yesterday due to the worst storm in years. Air conditioning is the peak use culprit.

It's certainly mostly off peak use to charge EVs now. I'm not sure exactly how the distribution is going to change with more EV use.

 

[demarpaint]

Natural gas isn't in any danger of being phased out. An important reason for coal being phased out is that natural gas has been cheaper for a long time and burns relatively clean. And strangely enough, the reason why natural gas prices went down was fracking. Oil makes for very little electricity output.

I hear threats of them wanting to phase it out here in NY, pretty stupid if you ask me. Bottom line wind and solar aren't going to cut it, so they better wake up, soon.

 

[4WD]

Natural gas isn't in any danger of being phased out. An important reason for coal being phased out is that natural gas has been cheaper for a long time and burns relatively clean. And strangely enough, the reason why natural gas prices went down was fracking. Oil makes for very little electricity output.

Fracking + horizontally drilled wells - some going sideways longer than vertical … smaller footprint on surface too …

 

[y_p_w]

I hear threats of them wanting to phase it out here in NY, pretty stupid if you ask me. Bottom line wind and solar aren't going to cut it, so they better wake up, soon.

The talk is about reducing natural gas for residential and perhaps heating commercial buildings. Obviously part of that is the efficiency of natural gas furnaces and home appliances. I believe another is just the worry that they're leaking methane. Granted - I've got a natural gas stove and it clearly does fail to ignite periodically. And even newer natural gas appliances release unburned methane before ignition.

I don't know enough about power generation other than I believe they're probably not turning them on/off often, and a natural gas powerplant is likely far more efficient than anything I've got at home.

 

[y_p_w]

Fracking + horizontally drilled wells - some going sideways longer than vertical … smaller footprint on surface too …

Sure.

 

[demarpaint]

The talk is about reducing natural gas for residential and perhaps heating commercial buildings. Obviously part of that is the efficiency of natural gas furnaces and home appliances. I believe another is just the worry that they're leaking methane. Granted - I've got a natural gas stove and it clearly does fail to ignite periodically. And even newer natural gas appliances release unburned methane before ignition.

I don't know enough about power generation other than I believe they're probably not turning them on/off often, and a natural gas powerplant is likely far more efficient than anything I've got at home.

I've heated and cooked with gas my whole life, it still works well for us. We had electric heat, hot water, and an electric stove in a house we owned in PA, it sucked. At the time it was very expensive to use as well. The point I am trying to make is if they want to go all electric "green," they better have a viable plan in place for where they're going to get all this power from.

 

[4WD]

I've heated and cooked with gas my whole life, it still works well for us. We had electric heat, hot water, and an electric stove in a house we owned in PA, it sucked. At the time it was very expensive to use as well. The point I am trying to make is if they want to go all electric "green," they better have a viable plan in place for where they're going to get all this power from.

Will never be an all electric home owner …

 

[y_p_w]

I've heated and cooked with gas my whole life, it still works well for us. We had electric heat, hot water, and an electric stove in a house we owned in PA, it sucked. At the time it was very expensive to use as well. The point I am trying to make is if they want to go all electric "green," they better have a viable plan in place for where they're going to get all this power from.

I believe the idea is that the electricity will be sourced in part with natural gas, where the industrial scale production of electricity is more efficient than burning on a home stove. Maybe not based on cost though. Currently gas stoves and dryers are cheaper to operate.

I was thinking in terms of the amount of natural gas needed to produce electricity for an electric stove compared to the equivalent amount of gas on a home gas stove.

 

[ripcord]

I believe the idea is that the electricity will be sourced in part with natural gas, where the industrial scale production of electricity is more efficient than burning on a home stove. Maybe not based on cost though. Currently gas stoves and dryers are cheaper to operate.

I was thinking in terms of the amount of natural gas needed to produce electricity for an electric stove compared to the equivalent amount of gas on a home gas stove.

For those uses, electrical transmission losses alone make it a good bit more efficient to consume the gas in the appliance instead of at a remote power plant.

 

[demarpaint]

Will never be an all electric home owner …

I hear ya. All the new houses we've been looking at only have all electric, I'm not a fan. Last year we went to my brother and his family for Thanksgiving diner. First year for them in Florida with all electric. My SIL cooked the turkey which took a ridiculous time to cook in the electric oven. She asked my son, a Chef to let her know if the turkey was done, time based on how she cooked them with gas here in NY. My son looked at it and laughed, saying not even close. It took a hell of a lot longer to cook!

 

[mk378]

Natural gas producers don't care much about retail gas for homes any more. They can sell all they can frack to power plants and export LNG. The retail side has lots of small pipe to maintain, meters to read and bills to collect, and bad publicity when houses explode.

 

[Trav]

The grid capacity is only part of the problem, the big thing here is the integrity of the supply infrastructure. You cannot have electric wires on toothpicks on the side of the street that get taken down on a regular basis by ice storms, lightning, overhanging tree limbs, drunks crashing into them at 2am, etc, etc etc.

 

[Torrid]

The grid capacity is only part of the problem, the big thing here is the integrity of the supply infrastructure. You cannot have electric wires on toothpicks on the side of the street that get taken down on a regular basis by ice storms, lightning, overhanging tree limbs, drunks crashing into them at 2am, etc, etc etc.

Haven't most newer areas been burying lines? I'm in an old area so our power lines are above ground, but they're ran in such a way that anyone hitting them is going through a house in the process. Sure it happens, but unless they did something magical with our set up I've never had an outage due to an ice storm and I've lived here going on 8 years now. We've also not had cold weather windmill failures either. I'm sure there's processes in place for harsh environments, but I'd still think we've gotten lucky here for the stories I've heard. It's just like when I lived in Las Vegas that people had problems with water pipes bursting for lack of waterpipe insulation. I did go through the trouble of doing the extra recommended insulation to circumvent it. Water pipes are exposed there when they go into the house. Everything is underground all the way into the house here. It sure gets a lot colder here than it ever could there.

I've seen what it's like first hand with places I've lived where we had outlying conditions beyond what the infrastructure was built for, but I've not had a single sustained power failure here and on top of that we never even had a flicker during the last cold snap below 0 that followed after getting a foot of snow dumped on us. I'm guessing they've had plenty of time to figure it out here.

 

[Trav]

Parts of New England are as old as the county itself, at one time when there was a lot of industry and the infrastructure was well maintained but today it is all gone and in many of the old towns and small cities everything has gone to Hades on a handbasket. They cant even fix the holes in the road never mind bury cables. Without an automatic standby generator I would be in bad shape, we have a power outage on a regular basis.

 

[demarpaint]

Haven't most newer areas been burying lines? I'm in an old area so our power lines are above ground, but they're ran in such a way that anyone hitting them is going through a house in the process. Sure it happens, but unless they did something magical with our set up I've never had an outage due to an ice storm and I've lived here going on 8 years now. We've also not had cold weather windmill failures either. I'm sure there's processes in place for harsh environments, but I'd still think we've gotten lucky here for the stories I've heard. It's just like when I lived in Las Vegas that people had problems with water pipes bursting for lack of waterpipe insulation. I did go through the trouble of doing the extra recommended insulation to circumvent it. Water pipes are exposed there when they go into the house. Everything is underground all the way into the house here. It sure gets a lot colder here than it ever could there.

I've seen what it's like first hand with places I've lived where we had outlying conditions beyond what the infrastructure was built for, but I've not had a single sustained power failure here and on top of that we never even had a flicker during the last cold snap below 0 that followed after getting a foot of snow dumped on us. I'm guessing they've had plenty of time to figure it out here.

Unfortunately burying lines isn't always the answer, as Sandy proved to a lot of people in Island Park that had lines underground, and transformers on sidewalks. The flooding wiped them out, and it took a lot longer to restore their power because a lot of the streets had to be dug up. Salt water flooding can be a real nightmare.

 

[MVAR]

Unfortunately burying lines isn't always the answer, as Sandy proved to a lot of people in Island Park that had lines underground, and transformers on sidewalks. The flooding wiped them out, and it took a lot longer to restore their power because a lot of the streets had to be dug up. Salt water flooding can be a real nightmare.

Underground cables are also limited in transfer capabilities due to their excess capacitive reactance. Extra reactive resources are required, voltage control becomes more difficult. Expense is astronomical. Also, as stated, restoration times are much longer as cables aren’t allowed to be tested via automatic or manual operation in many areas. Cables must be verified clear by a special underground crew prior to any energization. Overhead lines are many times restored via automatic reclose, sectionalizers & manual tests. They’re also much easier for inspection & repair if required.

 

[alarmguy]

Haven't most newer areas been burying lines? I'm in an old area so our power lines are above ground, but they're ran in such a way that anyone hitting them is going through a house in the process. Sure it happens, but unless they did something magical with our set up I've never had an outage due to an ice storm and I've lived here going on 8 years now. We've also not had cold weather windmill failures either. I'm sure there's processes in place for harsh environments, but I'd still think we've gotten lucky here for the stories I've heard. It's just like when I lived in Las Vegas that people had problems with water pipes bursting for lack of waterpipe insulation. I did go through the trouble of doing the extra recommended insulation to circumvent it. Water pipes are exposed there when they go into the house. Everything is underground all the way into the house here. It sure gets a lot colder here than it ever could there.
...

Yeah, almost all new areas have underground lines but chances are along the path are above ground feeder cables. Either way, it's a move in the right direction.

Another move in the right direction is the water pipe freezing you mentioned. Almost or all new homes use PEX instead of copper or other materials. PEX has incredible burst strength and when they freeze it is an extremely rare occurrence of any leak or bursting pipe. When I mention freeze I am talking about circumstances like you say in Vegas, also here in the Carolinas. Im not talking multi day freeze of a whole house.

Every year mostly because (but not always) of these new tankless water heaters, hundreds or thousands wake up in the morning with no hot water and many case no cold water, sloppy insulation work. To this day I dont know anyone once it thawed out that had a leak.
They are so sloppy with the water line installations here they run them right through the cold unheated attic. Sloppy insulation they freeze up on extreme cold that happens every couple years.
Just happened in my new community two weeks ago, 20 degrees a number of neighbors had no hot water, lines froze because of the sloppy insulation of much "herald" tankless water heater units on the sides of the home. We didnt freeze because in Nov I submitted a warranty claim to properly re-insulate the pipes to and from the heater. Plumber had a "polite" attitude said oh well, it doesnt get that cold here when I told him the story of our last community. *LOL* He grudgingly did the work and not the best work either. We didnt freeze.

 

[JohnnyG]

Generation may have gone down, but another article says USAGE has gone up.

 

[Rmay635703]

I would like him to explain why there are still brown outs and black outs and the state asking people to turn things off and not charge their car under high grid stress conditions. I bet he has some numbers he pulled out of his backside just for this question.

Effects of deregulation, Bad grid management, no different now than 20 years ago

Fracking + horizontally drilled wells - some going sideways longer than vertical … smaller footprint on surface too …

I hear threats of them wanting to phase it out here in NY, pretty stupid if you ask me. Bottom line wind and solar aren't going to cut it, so they better wake up, soon.

The north east has very little NG infrastructure already, sounds like somebody doesn’t want to do maintenance on few consumer lines available.

On older homes in northern regions gas, wood, pellets or fuel oil are a must to keep cost down.

Haven't most newer areas been burying lines? I'm in an old area so our power lines are above ground, but they're ran in such a way that anyone hitting them is going through a house in the process. Sure it happens, but unless they did something magical with our set up I've never had an outage due to an ice storm and I've lived here going on 8 years now. We've also not had cold weather windmill failures either. I'm sure there's processes in place

If you ask that question in Texas you will be told that a basement, underground lines and lines that run into the house on the insulated side of the walls are impossible to build because the sand shifts 2” a year.