Electrify Everything?
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- Опубліковано 17 сер 2023
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The demand for electricity has been soaring around the world, and this increase in demand is expected to continue. Governments have been creating rules to electrify transportation, heating, household appliances and even industrial processes. In today's video we look at the electric grids and copper production to see are they ready for these changes?
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germany has lost the interest of getting the line ready - which is a different story after brexit. Who wants to deal with britain anymore since Brexit.
And meanwhile offshore windfarms in Germany have grown a lot too. Copper is there , for sure, cause we build already big lines across the country from the north shore and farms to the southern industry and that is more or less in time, no issue with getting copper.
Also the car industry has made contracts regarding copper , new and recycled one so they are ahead of the time at least for the time till 2030.
20:31 - well, you have to take into account the additional wear and tear of the car due to additional discharging cycles. Vehicle 2 grid is a limited solution due to warranty limits cause VW and Skoda have limited this function for the car's life cycle to 4.000 h and 10.000 kWh which means you must be stupid to consider this cause the price for a V2G charger is multiple times more than a wallbox. And for an american household 10000 kWh is nothing while here in germany the average is 3300 kWh for a efficient and well insulated low energy home out of stones. Our grid has not outages at all except the excavator is hitting a cable and power is off for many, but also a lot have already solar power and do not care.
V2G is overestimated cause car manufacturer will limit the usage for sure. And if you damage the car inverter this way, you will face a bill far higher than any power will cause imagine the 10000 kWh are used and the inverter gets repaired for 2500$ then you have to pay 0,25 cent for the repair and also for the power you had drawn out of the battery, which before had been bought from the grid or produced with solar power which is here about 0,10 cent. I bet you can get cheaper a kWh than for 0,35 cent.
It is an illusion and only usefull if it is used in parkhouse and you get a good payment for stabilizing the grid which means 50 cent per kWh you feed from the car battery into the grid where you will have faced a 20% loss. With 50 Cent you can pay the losses and have small profit margin of 5 cent on top of the wear and tear at least for 10.000 kWh.
And yes, beyond 10.000 kWh the car will no longer provide the function cause it would hurt the battery too much and cause risks for the battery warranty of 8 years, therefore the hard limit. Electronics especially inverter suffer from usage a bit but mostly by heat caused by environment or usage therefore the wear and tear dilemma and also the strong limit by VW about 10000 kWh and 4000 hours which equals max discharge of 2,5 kW !
Quite low for a US household I bet. These are 2023 data from June when skoda has released the first upgrade of their cars with this V2Load feature and V2G will be following soon.
And all other car manufacturers will follow the same route more or less. The bigger the battery the more kWh might be possible, but in general the cars will be limited.
We have all these EV from VW, Mercedes, Tesla and Skoda and they will do all the same limitations, maybe 20% more or less, but a terrible investment in a country with highest availability rates in the 99,95% region and not outages. These special Wallboxes with the charge 2 grid function are too expensive.
Bidirectional charging would kill the batteries of the EV even more quickly than they die under normal use
*HEY PATRICK I NORMALLY LIKE YOUR STUFF*
I am an engineer and I ma trying to understand *how to make economic arguments.*
But when you start with _"The demand for electricity has been soaring around the world, and this increase in demand is expected to continue."_ I want to scream "DUH M0R0N."
Guess what if you increase the population of any society you increase how much food the need, how much housing they need, how much water they need *and how much energy they need.*
How hard is that to understand????
Engineers have been trying to tell you F⋃KING M0R0Ns these things for DECADES but *"NO how dare any engineer tell a clown with an economics degree something they don't want to hear."*
You have no idea how much as an engineer I want to scream at you business clowns over this stuff.
Seriously why does it always seem to come as a surprise when a power station finally gets so old that it can't keep running??? Or is it simply a case that you are so used to other people maintaining your stuff or you just trade up for something else *that you just don't get the idea that things wear out???*
@@crashnreset6987 the only actual solution is potassium borohydride as a store of electrical power (for example, excess power from wind farms on the ocean) you can even make them from the endproducts of oil processing without much extra effort. hydrogen fuel cell technology will be the next step, im almost sure it could be done now but i need to research the fuel cell more
Hi Patrick, I work as a program manager at a company that provides utility services (mainly electricity) to around 4 million households. All the points that you address are recognizable. However one major kind of capital is not talked about which is the human capital. At the company I work for we are able to get the materials but the human capital to install the materials is in huge deficit. That is the main problem. Not only in the Netherlands where I work but also in Germany, France, Belgium and so on..
It will get increasing worse in America.
Ironically, the “dating” world is driving young men to not give a 💩about having a good career. They will never get married and have children. A family man is HIGHLY motivated to work hard, to advance in his career, because he has a wife and children to provide for.
However, a single man only needs 1/4 the money, to life as good or better, than a married man with 2 kids. So this single man does not need a high dollar career. He is good with low skill jobs.
Where are the XXomen stepping up to take these male dominated work areas? NOWHERE. They are lazy and inept.
Increase salary.
Make learning programs.
Hire people.
Now or live with deficit
What do you need? Trades people?
@@imt3206 point 1 and 3 are easy. Point 2 on the other hand is very difficult. It takes a lot of time to learn a skill
@@Random_dud31Most people aren't aware that this skill is in demand.
I live in a small rural town in a country that's very far behind on EV charging station availability and that has a high car import tax despite the low median income. So far out of all the people I've interacted with that own EVs (quite a few because surprisingly enough there's a bunch of rich business owners here for some reason) the only one who considered getting EVs a great investment was the owner of several bakeries that spans the entire town + adjacent villages, he owns 4 vans to run the logistics between those bakeries and they are in constant use during the night and morning hours, and only stops them during the afternoon which is when he and the other people who run logistics go to sleep. He replaced 2 of those 4 vans for EV vans and he said the decision was well worth it to run these short distances that have stops in places he can use to recharge. Recently he had me install PV panels in his house, so now he recharges the van when he's asleep and then is set to go during night hours. The PVs have covered the full cost of recharging his EV + a tiny bit more on good days.
Overall he's pretty happy both with the EVs and the PV panels he bought to cover for the EVs. But he lives under very specific circumstances that favour these conditions, short drives, his stops are all his property, and his schedule coincides with the optimal time to charve with PV panels without needing to invest in PV batteries. His experience made me go from doubting EVs (and PVs) to understanding that they have a place in the market, but it's not the right solution for everyone.
Thank you ive been saying this for 10 plus years. Well said
Here in Norway, over 80% of all new cars are electric or hybrids
Things are changing fast.
Thanks to the fact that both panels and energy storage are dropping in price at a huge rate, panels and storage are becoming the number one energy solution pretty much everywhere.
As a professional of the utilities sector, this video is VERY accurate. Congratulations on your research and content. It is rare to see anyone covering the electricity utilities sector with such insight into the real challenges facing us ahead.
I'm not sure I agree with everything he said. I feel like some of these issues are overblown. Home ev chargers don't use insane amounts of power. Mine is similar to turning on my oven. Everyone comes home and turns on their ovens, and microwaves, tvs, ac units etc etc. I'm supposed to believe that at night in off peak times that the equivalent of people turning on their ovens is going to cause all the transformers are going to melt down?
@@themeach011LOL. You tried to diss...Patrick Boyle?
@java4653 I wasn't dissing. These are common misconceptions. I also don't agree with the comment that we need 4 times more fast chargers than gas pumps. Most people with evs rarely go to a fast charger unless they are on a road trip. Yes not all people will be able to charge at home, but most, especially early adopters will especially as street side chargers and chargers in appt buildings etc become more popular. There's certainly some places that don't have robust power grids but they've been like that since I was a kid and have done nothing about it in 40 years of having brown outs etc. But if Patrick is 100% convinced that everyone turning on their ovens is going to collapse the grid in North America then we better listen.
Nothing in my apartment used power like the roof A/C unit in Palm Springs. Also, if we can put cable in the water why not bury the lines. Would we hang water and gas lines in the air?
@@themeach011 Supposedly all chargers will be covered in solar panels and they will have mega battery packs associated so it will be DC to DC charging. Mega packs can charge when there is power then give it to cars.
The Paris Agreement is an empty promise with no compliance mechanism at all. When the challenges become clear, the leaders who made those promises are no longer in office, and the future leaders will simply forget about the Paris Agreement and make some other empty promises. If you look at the history of Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Accord, Paris Agreement, you will see how global climate agreement evolved to become less and less binding over time. Leaders are essentially making pledges for their grandchildren to start doing something for climate. These empty promises should not be the basis for investment decisions.
Doing nothing is even more expensive.
If we electrify @PBoyle we'll get 10 times the number of videos in half the time
I watch his hour long videos in an electrified state
I dont think my neural grid would be able to handle that much information being transmitted at peak youtube video consumption hours 😭
Bravo!
Do we build a mini reactor outside Patrick's house to generate the electricity?
Shocking. ⚡️
We need to build like 100 nuclear reactors
Or even more, like, maybe even *two* hundred
Yeah. So let’s do it.
The US EIA says the US needs at least 200 GW of additional firm carbon free new nuclear generation by 2050. So actually way more. See Pathways to Liftoff Report.
100 thousand even. Time to increase taxes!
In the US, inefficient buildings use 30% of US energy annually
as graduate student of power engineering, so happy you talk this topic. power industry is one of the most complex industries in the world. the more expensive electricity, more poor people affected.
You find out how dumb the non-engineering world is, especially if you learn economics.
And most people don't realize that poverty kills people. Any time that the cost of necessities rises, people at the margins die. Cost is critical.
@@dzcav3 Then you realize that money is only paper and that wealth is a social construct. Like how a power plant cost 1 billion in China while it cost 10 billions in US. Then you see how poor people in america have a lesser lifestyle (health, education, life expectancy) that a lot of peasant in poor countries. Then you start to see how the world work...
The ultimate goal of the WEF and modern environmental policy isn't to reduce carbon emissions, necessarily, it's to reduce YOU. It isn't as pro-environment as it is anti-human.
Ah screw the poor people. I’d rather feel good about myself that I helped save the world with my EV. Those kids in the Congo handling Cobalt can sacrifice themselves fur the greater good. Geez we are an arrogant generation. What could go wrong?
the black outs, will happen before the infrastructure upgrade,
that is how this works.
Yup, get everybody yelling "fix it!" in unison and you can basically get away with murder.
I work in IT infrastructure and it's exactly the same. Nobody wants to spend money on upgrading outdated equipment running on borrowed time, but after there's a totally unforeseeable outage, millions of dollars appear for upgrades.
Depends on where you live- New Zealand is already at 80% renewable, and we are rapidly decarbonising the remaining 20%. Geothermal will become the back up in emergency as this is independent of sun, wind, and importantly it’s always on.
@@craiggillett5985 usa is falling down tho, halfofit sems t have been built 100years ago or more
The planning will happen well in advance. Getting the hardware has been the chokepoint as long as I can remember. As our host points out, when more lines are needed land acquisition becomes a big mess.
I think the rules change from state to state, but in Arizona the company pays for maintenance and the ratepayers pay for capital projects. That really make land acquisition tricky: the company has to commit before it knows where the lines will go.
14:28 Transmission lines are made of aluminum, not copper. The distribution network is partially copper, but even the lines running from the pole transformer to your meter are usually aluminum these days. HVDC cables similarly are typically aluminum rather than copper..
Good point about the technical details and about how Aluminum is used. Much of Patrick’s point still holds. Aluminum not only requires some of the same destructive mining techniques to attain, it is one of the most energy intensive materials to refine. It’s so energy intense that we ship some of it to Iceland for that process because they have cheap electricity. Then you still have all of the costs about increasing physical size, right of ways, maintenance, new cooling technologies, etc.
I guess if you aim to actually use electricity for everything, like outsourcing power for heating from thousands miles away instead of using full fuel efficiency ad hoc, you wouldn't really like the idea of heating the air around power lines by using material with more resistance. Especially if your idea fix is to actually stop dumping heat into the atmosphere.
Sorry there's nothing wrong with the aluminum wires per se, it's just I find the idea of electrifying for the electrification quite dumb. Some heat pump subsidies, infrastructural work for more efficient centralized heating and carbon capture systems sounds better to me than yeeting ton of wires for the sake of moving power around.
Could you imagine the weight of a high voltage transmission line made of copper lol
How would they even move them...
An "interesting reflection"
USA produce around 4,200 TWh in 2022 there is around 27 years to 2050
China have increased their electricity production (including building transmission lines etc) by around 7000 TWh the last 25 years.
So... USA should EASILY?? be able to 3X their electricity production until 2050... at least double it...
In short it is just about how much you want to do it...
@@dmitryburlakov6920 overhead wires need to conduct electricity efficiently, but they also need to have a high strength to weight ratio. Copper isn't the optimal material- aluminum is closer to the mark, so it's used.
As I recall, they're typically copper clad aluminum wires. Mostly aluminum for the weight reduction, but clad the outside to take advantage of the skin effect
in before Elon makes a copper company called CuX
😂
I think it's become apparent that electrifying everything is not the silver bullet to solve the climate crisis. We also need to stop buying so much useless garbage and our cities need to be more walkable and bikeable, with efficient public transportation.
It's never been a silver bullet. Switching to electricity instead of alternatives still requires that electricity to be generated, but it opens up more options that pollute less, because it's not only more realistic to make more efficient electric motors one day, but we can use varied sources of electricity generation to balance out pollution and cost, for less pollution overall. If we look at it from an economic point of view though, as we move more to electricity it means cheaper electricity as supply increases, which then leads to a demand for more electricity. Over time that still leads to more issues from electric generation, as it gets cleaner per kwh but we use more kwh's overall offsetting that.
Exactly. There is much talk about renewables/electrification, but not much talk about energy efficiency. If we are to achieve climate goals, we need to focus on the latter just as much as the former. This will, as you say, involve more energy efficient forms of transportation, such as bicycles, trains, and buses.
What climate crisis? Is there a climate crisis?
We're not Europe in the US. Certain cities can pull it off like Philly, DC or pulled it off like NYC where you can totally get around without a car. Your newer cities like LA, Las Vegas Dallas or so can have more efficient transportation options and better freeway lanes. Cities built from scratch in the future can be a walking/biking city.
There is no climate crisis. There are only various levels of grift.
For those pointing out that transmission cables are more aluminium than copper, okay so patrick got one detail wrong in an extremely complex problem.
And does that detail make much of a differenc? Okay, you have aluminium instead of copper but it's not as it aluminium is a renewable resource itself. All the points patrick made about copper, like how a lot of it would be required to upgrade, mining for it will be needed to stepped up bringing along with it it's mining related downsides, are still true, just that it's aluminium instead of copper
Mostly Aluminium conductors for high voltage transmission.
Even though aluminum wiring has been implicated in fires in domestic installations, I wonder if copper shortages are going to cause engineers and builders to be more creative.
Common aluminum wire is about 40% less conductive than copper. I bet that we end up using some sort of Al/Cu alloy.
@@antoniovillanueva308 Aluminum and copper can't be alloyed for electrical wire because the combination results in galvanic corrosion of the aluminum. Aluminum is already used by itself for high voltage wiring and was once used for domestic wiring. The problem is that it must be pigtailed with copper in order to connect it to most receptacles and fixtures. If these junctions between aluminum and copper aren't formed correctly, the aluminum corrodes and the junction can heat under load and start a fire. However, aluminum is much less expensive and more widely available than copper, and its 40% less conductivity is not necessarily a problem if larger gauge wire is used.
@@antoniovillanueva308 Just make the aluminium cable bigger! How much? Just 56% more cross section and you are on par. This cable is only 47% as heavy as the copper wire and costs 15% of the copper cable!
Copper is the limiting element, it’s the one we run out of first when expanding the grid. Patrick is just quoting his sources in the industry, and neither he nor they said that transmission lines are themselves made of copper.
If you can, get off grid at home. Did it three years ago, never looked back and system paid for itself in those three years with lpg gas and diesel price increases. If it was widespread, you could sidestep these transmission issues with the grid. Greetings from Spain.
they will go 100k into debt for a truck that spits out dieseil poisin but not find 10k for solar lolol and wonder why the economy is crumbling
I don't live in sunny in spain
You ought to give people here an idea of what people in Spain are paying for electricity per megawatt hour.
I recently saw a price as low as 1 Euro per megawatt hour.
I was truly stunned by that price!
This retiree from a Fortune 100 electric company says this is the most factually based video I have ever seen, being about half on target and no misinformation. The closest miss is the assumption that transmission lines are copper; aluminum is the metal of choice.
The missed part is the one that bites us much more often than we think: grid stability. In any such system generation has to equal loss plus load every second or so. Until the last few decades stability management has meant taking lines out of service to balance generation and load. In July 1996 my family was enjoying the indoor afternoon temperature in Phoenix when the power went out. We were not alone. Much of the Western interconnection (essentially north America west of the Rockies from the Arctic Circle to the Sea of Cortez) was down. Why? The trigger seemed to be filbert trees in Oregon that had not been trimmed, allowing the transmission lines above them to sag until blammo! (technical term). Transfer Trip schemes cut that piece into the clear, but that change introduced instability of its own. Like a waiter with a tray of drinks, balance is everything. Cut this, cut that, too much generation so cut that, too much load so cut this.... Now Remedial Action Schemes use communications and computers to decide what to do instead of reaching stability by de-energizing everything.
Transformers have made AC power the standard the world over. We have learned to deal with frequency and phase crises by shutting things down, although bringing it back up can take hours, even most of a day. With the advent of high power solid state inverters we can use DC on the lines (several are in service, greatly simplifying stability. The question is "when will we be ready for The Big Change?" By that time we will know what to do better than we do now.
Was he part of one of the many energy companies that lied about climate change leading us to the situation we are currently in?
Things like car charging, heat pumps for both space heating and water heating, bulk computation are all inherently load shedable.
My biggest concern about "virtual power plants" is that all of the schemes I have come across are proprietary. I feel load shedding won't work unless the varied uses all interoperate.
Otherwise you can have a situation where you water heater load-sheds during the supper hour in response to a request [from your] power company. Your electric car, seeing a drop in electrical demand through the "whole house energy monitor" then starts charging: because the car does not know why the water heater stopped requesting power. The overall effect is that the "virtual power plant" does not work because other inherently shedable loads come online instead.
In Switzerland since years the power companies turn off your washing machine and dryer on weekdays from 11:30 to 12:30 to better balance power needs from all the housewives cooking lunch. This is now changed to heat pumps and all homes have the hardware for this to extend to EV charging. All homes have 230 volt three phase at 63 amps. Fast charging will become a problem.
Fast charging isn't useful for home charging, especially as the faster you charge the more heat loss.
communists then basically
What if you make your own power with solar
Yeah, I think balancing the grid with price signals is a better solution. In Australia the wholesale price for electricity goes negative in the middle of the day and retail electricity companies offer this wholesale price for a monthly connection fee. Others offer free electricity in the middle of the day. That's a better solution to balance the grid.
@@zen1647 Problem is for price signals to be effective: you need to let the price swing wildly, which defeats the point of even hooking up to the grid for reliable power (if you can't afford to use it). I think regulation is still needed to force inherently load seddable uses like cryptomining and bulk computation to reduce demand during the peak demand time. In 2021 ETH mining would have been profitable for me at even $1/kWh due to a confluence of factors.
Great video! I have been making similar calculations for a physics degree project and after the project too. It really is a problem and I am quite pessimistic about it.
At the end of the day the solution for me looks like more dense housing and public transportation. Problem is that people don't want it.
I would want it, if I could afford it. But the densest places are also the most expensive. Quite the catch 22
Government shouldnt be wasting money on EVs. If they want to drop a billion they should drop on cheap public housing. Just do one of the few good things that the soviets did. Just pour concrete into molds and those pieces stack into apartment buildings. Now millenials can actually own a living space (condo) and it doesnt require the slave mining for cobalt from the center of africa.
Not everything is a problem requiring a solution. More often than not, increasing levels of tolerable is all that' required to keep people happy. Apply your physics to the latter and know you've made the world and mankind more gooder.
Yeah it is a "problem"... those damn people. If only there were less of them around... /s
Exactly ! It seems to me it will eventually all have to boil down to just having everybody use less energy, by using efficient public transportation (like electric trains) and driving smaller electric vehicles (not the 3000+ lbs electric cars we see today). That's what the IPCC folks concluded anyway.
Many, if not most states already charge EV users a “road use” tax. I believe this is usually about $300 per year. For example, Ohio and Texas have this tax but Pennsylvania does not.
Good point about state road use taxes. I think Patrick is talking about the $0.184 national gas taxes assessed at the gas/diesel fuel pumps. While much lower than every other industrial country in the world, that tax does contribute to a large part of the road way budget. If we transition to all electric, we will need to replace that funding. Your $300 annual tax is probably a good place to start.
@conorkoesterman6769
Do not know about other countries but in EU things tend to be about the same...
I live in Sweden and I did a "ball park" calculation, considering "energy taxes" VAT etc the government will not really lose anything with the switch from gas (petrol) to Electricity.
@@qinby1182 Any country that doesn't have its own oil supply and refineries will be much better off going to electric cars rather than spending a fortune for gas and then burning it. That increases current account deficits, and countries don't like that.
Road taxes based on weight make the most sense, as weight is the dominant factor in road wear. EVs are surprisingly dense and so would pay more, but it would likewise discourage oversize SUVs and crew cab pickups, while favoring gridlock-breaking motorbikes.
@@doujinflip Weight is a factor but it's logarithmic, not linear. The added weight of an EV is not going to wear the road out any faster than its ICE equivalent. Larger vehicles such as Trucks (with Garbage trucks being the #1 source of damage to residential roads)... those do a hell of a lot more damage to roads than passenger cars.
Great video! It seems that copper will be crucial for electrifying homes, but for long distance transmission aluminum is going to be key. Aluminum conducts more electricity per pound than copper which is crucial for spanning those pylons, and is much more plentiful.
Another thought. Oil wells and refineries, sea tankers, road tankers, trips to petrol stations, etc. use a non-trivial amount of power. As this ramps down, how does that impact the energy balance sheet? Is it already offset in the relevant findings here?
In places like Arizona, Nevada, Texas - with hotter days than ever before and warmer nights, utilities have begun increasing their heat exchanger sizes on street level transformers already to accommodate for increasing temps.
I live in Texas and have for nearly 50 years. We are not having hotter days than ever before. The summer of 1980 was worse than this year. We haven’t even come close to the record (which was reached in 1936 and 1994).
The climate (weather) is not just about how hot it is. Not hot, really. You should try working outside like i do. but what about the cold. Rolling blackouts, luckily i am on the same line as the fire department. Been in texas since 89, its getting relatively worse as a whole. Not just the heat, also the cold.
@@franciscodanconia4324 Since you and the commenter seem to speak anecdotally, I'm curious what the average temps across say, Texas look to validate either claim.
This phenomina has nothing to do with rising temperatures and everything to do with increased electrical loads at night. Patrick discusses this at the 00:03:40 mark.
I live in Phoenix, AZ and it's just like every other summer. Total hogwash narrative that its been unusually hot here. This past June was actually the coolest I've ever experienced, and I work outside for a pool company, so I deal with the weather every day.
I saw a video featuring Associate Professor Simon Michaux who worked out how much metals are required to replace current power generation with solar and wind, he concluded we need 5 times the total amount of copper ever mined in all of history. That didn't include the copper needed for upgrading suburban electrical networks as mentioned in this video. Another thing he mentioned is the wind turbine blades have a lifespan of only 20 years before they need to be replaced and with the current level of technology the blades cannot be recycled, they go to landfill and get buried. He also mentioned the lifespan solar cells have but the numbers aren't up in the grey matter right now lol. Long story short, there are issues with recycling the solar pannels, getting all the minerals back is an expensive process that cannot extract much of the minerals. He also looked at one of the huge mines in Australia, the big dump trucks run on diesel, they have to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with short breaks to change drivers and refuel, even then the dump trucks take something like 20 years to pay for themselves, electric is basically useless, the batteries alone weigh 19 tonnes and last 90 minutes before needing recharging, he didn't specify how long recharging takes but said that short length of time made them uneconomical.
Did you know that mining fossil fuels just to burn them requires an order of magnitude more energy than mining for renewable energy systems?
A 1992 report by the National Academy of Engineering did talk about the cost of upgrading the USA grid. The report estimated that the cost of upgrading the grid would be $1 trillion over 20 years. This would include the cost of building new transmission lines, upgrading existing lines, and deploying new technologies.
The report also noted that the cost of not upgrading the grid would be even higher. The report estimated that the cost of blackouts and brownouts would be $100 billion per year. The report also noted that the environmental impact of the grid would increase if it were not upgraded.
The report concluded that the cost of upgrading the grid was a worthwhile investment. The report argued that the grid was essential to the U.S. economy and that it needed to be made more reliable, efficient, sustainable, and secure.
However, the cost of not upgrading the grid is even higher. As the grid continues to age and the demand for electricity increases, the need for upgrading the grid becomes more urgent. So let bit the bullet now and invest billion to upgrade the grid starting today!!!!
Alot of people talk about nuclear power plants. But ask them if they want to live within a 20 mile radius of one. If you want to make everything electric. A good start is not shutting down current powerplants. And start building cleaner more efficient gas burning units. Then re evaluate. Your renewable goals.
You didn't mentioned energy storage that for sure will play part in the final solution.
Yes, I found it amusing that he talked about transmission lines a lot and completely missed the economics of putting energy storage in critical spots precisely to alleviate the transmission line congestion as an alternative to building new transmission line infrastructure. Which several states are now doing, I might add.
@@junkerzn7312storage is critical to the energy transition, and it won't happen without it.
Very good review for being an economist 👍 Wish for more realistic takes like this, engineers have talked about this for 5-10 years
15 years! And how government start work to do Kyoto agreement (1997)...
Excellent video, but as an engineer in high voltage power distribution who has worked in the battery industry for 2 decades, followed by 2+ decades in the automotive industry (recent years in BEV technology) I‘d like to add a further argument against the utilization of batteries to cope with peaks in demand; the relatively poor efficiency factor of batteries regardless of battery technology (though admittedly worse for „old school“ battery technology (Pb, NiCd, NiMH etc.) than current Li-technology) Ie., when charging a battery, significantly more energy is used in the chemical process than then resulting energy stored in the charged battery. Furthermore, when discharged, significantly less energy is available than the energy initially stored in the battery. Input > stored energy > output. Energy is „spilled“ every time a battery gets charged and then again when it gets discharged. Fast charging and discharging make the efficiency factor even worse. Furthermore, this loss increases as a battery ages, making the use of old batteries from BEVs for static powerwalls even less efficient and overall a particularly bad idea, even though a certain weed-smoking „genius“ has told us how great it is. Of course, the loss resulting from converting AC to DC when charging and from DC to AC when using batteries as buffers in high voltage power distribution, reduces the efficiency even more. It‘s like pouring liquid back and forth between bottles while blindfolded and with shaky hands. So while batteries principally can help cope with peaks in demand, actually doing it contributes to the general power deficiency. A really bad idea!
Great essay, as always. I really enjoy your thought exercises, analysis, and wit. Keep,it up!
I work in the industry as well and agree on a lot of the points you make. I've pointed out several times that for a giant recharging station like a current Bucees in the US they'll have to co-locate generation or at a minimum install a substation directly off of transmission to meet a demand peak. I think there might actually be a business opportunity in co-locating that generation allowing the station to buy and sell into the wholesale power markets. When we see rising interconnect costs for the large scale data centers I wonder when we'll start seeing companies decide to build their own generation and sell into the market (or establish long term PPA with colocated generation). I'll also add that people underestimate the lift to get better data and control systems on the distribution level for utilities. ADMS projects are costly, take time to deploy, and require accurate power flow models and the talent to deploy these systems are in short supply.
In Germany we can co-sell it into the grid, but the autorities cant even keep the grid running during weather changes. The amounth of planing to do so is over-wealming and our local goverment officials dont enjoy the best reputation to acctually coordinate over multiple levels of planning and execution.
I dont think that you'll see the same level of mega refilling stations as you do with gas. With gas, 100% of refilling is at home, while with electric, most people will get 80%+ of their refilling done at home overnight.
I also expect most multifamily will install at least level 1, if not level 2 chargers in most stalls. Upgrades to their local grid, but enough that I still think most EVs will charge at home.
1) If the transition to EV is too fast, it will generate problems with transmission and prices of coppers, etc. But completely transforming transportation to electricity will take 40 or 50 years at least.
2) Prices will moderate the transition. If some part of the network is overly demanded, prices will increase, reducing demand and incentives for the needed investments.
3) Since the transition will take a while, you must consider technological change. For example, the coming LiFePO4 batteries can be charged much faster than LiCoO2 batteries. Also, you should consider local off-grid production on roofs and new generations of nuclear power plants, etc.
4) The argument that making EV cars will produce emissions is odd since making fossil fuel cars also generate emissions. From global warming point of view is better a vehicle that saves 40% fossil fuel than nothing (since 60% of the electricity comes from fossil fuel)
5) There are no silver bullets for solving global warming. Many other policies must play a role-for example, a fast track to build power lines.
1) says who? Put references. EU is planning to ban IC vehicles by 2030, so in a little over 6 years.
2) if EVs are the only transportation modes, prices will not be controlled
3) this assumes point 1) is true, which is far from proven.
4) emissions are 1 part of the problem, the others being rare earth depletion (which EV production does way more than ICV production) and human rights violations (which EV production does way more than ICV production)
5) agreed, but your many assumptions taken are clearly wishful thinking, which will get us in a whole world of trouble in 20 years time.
Ban IC sales**
@@lentilgod58 You should move to a third-world country and become a dictator. That attitude is a part of the problem behind transition.
@@lentilgod58 there is no rare earth depletion. Rare Earths are not rare there are rare earth deposits everywhere. The challenge is building expensive and complex infrastructure required to turn raw Rare Earth materials into final products. The original poster is very well informed, he is correct on all the points.
Regarding the gas tax, many states charge a new tax applied to your car registration for EV's. That money is used for roads like the gas tax. There are several maps available online to show what the new fees are in lieu of the gas tax for EV's.
Thank you so much for this informative presentation. I appreciate this deeper dive into the challenges facing us.
This gives an excellent summary of the complexities invovled in electrifying everything.
Sort of, but it's only half the story, because it doesn't go into _why_ those changes are still a net positive. It doesn't explain the _existing_ costs of _not_ making these changes.
@@timogulat current prices, it makes more sense to add on mandatory carbon and clean air offset purchases to your gas vehicle than it does to transition to all electric.
@@Steve83B "Carbon offset" programs are more often than not a scam, just a way for people to keep burning gas without the guilt, which is why fossil fuel companies lobby them so hard. Using existing methods, it is impossible to actually offset the carbon we're currently using, and there are no theorized methods that could keep up. The costs of switching to EVs are MUCH lower than the costs of not doing so, both at the global level, and the individual level.
@@Steve83B Carbon offsets are a "scam". IIRC Patrick has a video about them, as well.
@@SigFigNewton Carbon taxes are probably not the answer, not unless we invent some SERIOUS global cooling tech as well, either by removing industrial amounts of carbon from the existing air, or using some other method to make things cooler at a rate faster than the green house effect makes them warmer.
Outside of that, a carbon tax is not an answer because it is still outputting carbon, and we need to stop that entirely as quickly as possible. Unless the taxes are SO massive that everyone stops using them voluntarily because it's just way too expensive.
Of course carbon industries LOVE carbon taxes "as a solution," because they get to keep doing what they do.
My family has an EV, Tesla Model 3 dual motor. It takes about 4 hours to charge for a typical 140 mile day of driving. We got it in 2021 when gasoline prices were jumping for absolutely no reason. Demand was still down because most were still working from home. The spike to $6+ a gallon was engineered. Having an EV not only lets us charge for an equivalent of $1.50/gal but we also have the option of going solar. If working from home, every day, enough power comes to charge up. We drive about 30k miles a year, roughly twice the average.
As far as energy consumption goes, we're using about 30% more energy than before. Insulating the attic did save about 15%. Windows need to be replaced as well as upgrading the 3 ton HVAC (50% of our consumption). We only sporadically supercharge. It only makes sense when driving at least 75 miles from home since the cost is triple charging at home. This isn't true in all areas.
Without new nuclear plants, the demand for grid scale energy storage will explode. Lithium ion batteries cost about triple what lead acid batteries cost. If correctly engineered and maintained, lead acid batteries can last 40 years. The Edison battery common in the 1970s was of that type. Also, telecoms use that kind.
Power lines can be aluminum, but it's thicker. The ocean can be a source for metals. The collection of polymetallic nodules is the least intrusive. That'll supply manganese, nickel, cobalt, and copper (mostly manganese).
Almost all power lines are aluminium. You very rarely see copper power lines, they actually look green.
Detail: "Lithium ion batteries cost about triple what lead acid batteries cost.". Well, no. 2023-sep purchase price of Pb is slightly lower than LFP, but given life-cycle and other advantages TCO of LFP is much lower.
"..40 years " etc. where /how do you get that number? Everything I have seen says cycle-life and many other degradation numbers of lead acid are way worse than LFP.
Thank you, Patrick, for your brilliant report.
Right on. Thanks for sharing.
Patrick Boyle might want to look up ACSR (Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced) cable. This is what transmission lines are made out of, not copper.
100% correct, But you missed the point, "trees for the forest"
I can draw you pictures if you want?
What's does drawing a tree have to do with anything?
@@altaccout he was comparing your point of view as details incorporated into general subject
I always love when economists, finance advisers, people who study demographics, etc. try weighing in on technical subjects. Every time they touch a subject you actually know it's a stark reminder of how profoundly shallow their entire field of expertise is.
But by all means trash on a guy for not seeing the forest for the trees after offering one example of a tree that's actually a cactus. I hate to break it to you but it's not the only one.
@@HonoredMule Is the point that Power lines are made of copper (cactus) or that more copper will be needed in a decarbonized economy (forest)? Is there some tech on the horizon that makes copper obsolete? Do you also always love tech guys weighing in on the economy? Shallow expertise and all...?
We need to do the Reduce part of Reduce Reuse Recycle if we are to electrify everything
Very informative. Thank you!
Great video! The "Electrify Everything" agenda is simply not going to happen. Anyone in the mining, electricity production & distribution, etc. industries could tell you this, but you've boiled the whole thing down here very effectively.
Thank you for making this episode. Your approach is stellar and it has to be watchable if the information has any chance of being dispersed. I'm a big fan of your content as well as your deft subtle application of humor. Thanks again and hopefully my comment doesn't seem AI generated. Man, what are we going to do about that......
Very interesting and informative discussion. What is not mentioned is commercial buildings and apartment buildings converting to solar. Politicians run by lobbyists won't allow these most efficient conversions to occur, which puts the burden on individual homes, where such conversions are orders of magnitude less efficient.
Good video Patrick! Your videos are always insightful
Bravo Patrick, great info!
I work in a related field. Some insight, when a renewable project is proposed and power purchase agreement is being negotiated one of the things that happens is called an "Interconnection Study". Depending on the state and what entity manages the grid this could go a few different ways but most of the time the developer pays for the study that is then reviewed by the grid operator. They study will determine how much additional power the grid in that area can take and also determine what upgrades will be needed if the developer wishes to generate more power. The developer will need to pay for these upgrades if they wish to continue with the project.
With the amount of money to be made I know at least a dozen projects where the developer is building a full substation or upgrading the substation for the grid to secure the project.
They do that with your money and mine, since the whole project is subsidized
Increasingly I realise how lucky New Zealand is, and how fortuitous it was that a decision was made to invest in geothermal and hydro generation in the 1960’s. As a result we average over 80% renewable and are rapidly decarbonising the remainder. I’m not in the energy business, however I understand we have been upgrading our national grid to a smart grid with dispersed local generation / wind, solar, and residential generation and storage options. The benefits of being in a small country really show through as we face the challenges of the next decade.
it aint that small, about th e size of the uk soo far bigger than England
Define size.
Same like Scotland.. Minus the thermal...
Same like Tasmania ( the size of Ireland). We run on 100% hydro, no geothermal.
NZ is in a great position. They can use hydro as a type of battery to spin up and down output as wind and solar fluctuate. A friend has solar there and gets way better generation than I do in Ireland.
I'm an engineer and have been saying this for quite sometime, electrifying everything is a noble goal, however I don't see the cost of vehicle chargers coming down massively (due to raw material costs) and the loads required for fast chargers are enormous which in my view are unfeasible to meet on a global scale.
Realistically we need massive public transport increases and plug in hybrids for the edge cases. Trucks and such could use overhead lines potentially with smaller more reasonable batteries. Fundamentally we need a shift in our economies and how we plan out cities if we are to have any hope of dealing with this.
Great video! I enjoyed the topic very much. It gave me some ideas to think about. Thank you Mr Boyle
Great Video, Being an electrical engineer myself working for the Italian energy company I am worried that politicians and activists don't really get the SCALE of the change they are advocating for. A change that could lead and IS leading to offshoring all the production of goods widening our trade deficit and bringing recession. That's what happens when ideologies take over and numbers are dismissed. I know CO2 is very bad and global warming is a thing but I worry the effects are being exaggerated for fearmongering and manipulation of policies that benefit only a few and screw the everyday people who must work for a living and struggle to make ends meat.
They either on purpose or accident inhibit population growth and job growth in areas that need it like energy production housing production food production and transportation the sectors anticompetitive inhibit job creation and thus its a trickle down effect rest of competitive sectors can't grow.
This may be a good thing in some people's eyes as is growing human population more than it is. Is that really a good thing?
What about things like fossil fuel they are limited supply. We extract alot of resources from earth and many times lose percentage of those resources once it is consumed.
Most people disagree on child birth will do it any ways my sister is one of them I beg her not have kids now she wanders around expect govt or family pay for it. Etc.
Most societies are aimless ships and where the ships may be headed may not be good for mankind
Such a fantastic video analysis and information 👏 👌 👍 excellent Patrick!
Fantastic presentation! You are informative and concise. Keep up the great work. :)
Thanks for uploading this. Good timing as I was just having the electrification debate with a friend today.
High voltage transmissions lines ARE NOT MADE OF COPPER, they are made of aluminium (alloy)
He is out of his expertise in this video and shaming himself with lots of nonsense
@@boraokudoes it matter? Overall he's right. You're just getting anal about details, it has no impact on the whole argument.
Well I think there is a general lack of perspective as to why this transition is happening. Overall challenges are present but they are not overwhelmingly impossible and this video seriously has a strange tone. Let’s mine, drill and burn fossil fuel forever? Or transition as we are doing at the moment. And also another comment I wrote was generating electricity at source rather than upgrading the grid. Many people always have houses which are almost 100% self sustaining in terms of energy generation and usage.
@@UA-camGlobalAdminstrator And the mistakes in his argument only strengthen his argument when corrected. Aluminum cables already have to be larger to carry the same current as copper.
“Already” not “always” and here is an example of that again:
m.ua-cam.com/video/UJeSWbR6W04/v-deo.html
Very interesting Video, but I would like to add 1 Thing, battery life ist determined by how many charging cycles a battery can handle and after a certain amount you need to replace it or buy a new car. I am not sure if this is very well known because if the dual use of EV becomes more popular I don't think the owners are compensated enough. At least with current battery technology.
Yes! Simple calculation of cost of battery pack (like PowerWall from Tesla 14 K USD) divided by product of capacity (13.5 KWh) and number of cycles (say 1000 in fact even less) makes cost of electricity more that 1 USD per KWh. That is why nobody puts battery as a strorage on main power lines. It is not feasible.
Excellent work Sir.
You are spot on about renewable energy. Great Video!
Big investiment thesis: basic materials commodities producers for the next 20 to 30 years. Nickel, aluminium, copper...
Actually just invest in electric producing companies and avoid commodities markets all together. Usually they are filled with problems with social unrest, wars, corruption, etc..
Extremely volatile industry, high specificity risks.
For appropriate and targeted exposure materials makers might be more favorable than miners. Many components' materials already require extensive use of semiconductor materials such as Silicon and Silicon Carbide. Growers of such crystal materials are often located in 1st world countries and are more exposed to demands of the tec sector in general. My personal, not so big, investment thesis.
Would anyone in this thread have any suggestions to relevant ETFs (those related to mining, material making, and electricity generation) that ought be looked at. Would appreciate the pointers, I think Pat has done us a great help and would like to take some action on it (with due diligence of course)
@@MrSomsoc Mining is the bottleneck, not the electricity producers.
Great complete analysis, tough to hear, but true. One simple solution is when houses install solar panels, that reduces the problem of saturating the grid and transformers, in synthesis, the energy transport problem.
Also, locally produced power helps reduce transmission losses.
@@AnOriginalUA-camr yes, another advantage. So, this seems to be the best path to follow, locally producing power, (when possible of course).
Government should do same numbers, instead of building huge problematic grids, why not subsidy solar panels so each home produces its own electricity.
Excellent explanation of a very important matter.
Thank you.
I’d love a follow-up video where nuclear reactors are discussed. While overall probably more expensive, having nuclear reactors nearer the large cities reduces need to transport energy so far away and is not tied to wind or sun. I’d love to hear Patrick’s research on it!
Check out Michael Barnard for some insightful articles on nuclear, especially SMRs.
til;dr Too expensive
noone wants to live near one. fact
@@PazLeBon same for existing wind farms and power plants. I don’t think that problem is unique to nuclear plants.
@@PazLeBon I don't know about you but I'd rather live next to a nuclear power plant which has very very strict safety protocols, all waste is accounted for, and has 0 emissions than live next to a coal or oil powerplant where the waste is inside everyone's lungs. Also, nuclear powerplants have the second lowest death rate per terrawatt of procution, including all disasters like Chernobyl (Soviet era mismanagment) and Fukushima (A natural disater that had 0 deaths due to radiation, all of the casualties were from the tsunami and earth quake). For every terrawat of electricity, 0.03 people die to nuclear. The only comparable production method is wind with 0.04 and solar with 0.02. Hydro is 1.3, and brown coal is the highest with 32.72 deaths. This includes accidents and air pollution.
@@pyromaniachimbo noone wants to live next toi an eye sore lol irrespective oif the safety. they dont even lik eliving near turbines :)
All of this is exactly why a lot of people correctly point out that the biggest problem with an electric car is that it's still a car. Revamping our cities and even our suburbs to be less automobile dependent is going to be a hugely necessary step to meet these challenges, for all of the reasons you outline here. It's not enough to switch to EVs, we need to reduce the demand for vehicles in general. I am a little confused about all the hand wringing over Copper though, given almost all long distance transmission lines are made of Aluminum.
yeah just take away peoples primary choice of transport so that China can burn coal and ruin the climate anyway what a great option.
This video really puts things in perspective
Always love a cameo appearance from the legendary D-Sol 16:45 😂
You finally hit the spot at 16:19. Peak freemarket. Everyone sweats assets to failure, price-gouging all the way. Taxpayers put in cash to sort it out. Rinse & repeat....
we used to actually enforce anti-trust laws...
Nonsense. The market has pepple ostracize failures and gougers so only those who offer a fair product survive... unless a government or monopoluy or other circumstance allows one party to survive past their due.
@@auraguard0212 90%of things ARE monolpolies tho , in reality when you see like thousandosf companies owned by just oe one or two
@@auraguard0212it’s so sad that even Patrick’s audience is so ignorant on basic economics fundamentals. All their reasoning comes straight from nonsensical liberal memes. We are at a preschool level of thinking when we need graduate level planning.
Seriously excellent fodder for thought. Forwarding to all my just stop oil friends.
They probably will ignore it. For them, it is about control not the environment.
Because oil is freedom? Wtf you smoking
Still too optimistic in a couple places. Maintaining stability with existing lines, or even more AC lines, would be quite a trick. I'm not saying impossible but definitely tricky. I still root for DC - we have the technology but not wide scale availability of inverters. In addition, CMEs are not a big deal for DC systems.
Other than that, by far the most grounded (he he) discussion of the subject I have seen.
A most informative and revealing video - thanks!
Saw this as possible demand on copper so bought SCCO. so far so good...
It's almost like designing your country around private car ownership is not sustainable, regardless of the fuel...
I think a lot of the car charging statistics are based on worst case scenarios. The likely case is that cars do not need charged every night but there will be peaks on weekends. The best case is the cars communicate with the grid and balance the load. Though it seems like US transformers are flawed compared to UK substations?
Trains rule, cars drool.
when there is coercion,
somebody is benefiting massively.
power stations, electric grids, copper mines, and the total state benefits....
This was enlightening
Norway is proof you’re wrong. We only charge our ev once or twice / week. Power generation is much less solicited at night so there’s plenty of capacity with the existing infrastructure.
Norway would not need power guzzling AC's either.
In Australia, some catastrophic bushfires have been caused by electricity wires, with burnt out poles collapsing causing more mayhem and the grid totally collapses. So, no power for generators for water, no internet access to hear alerts / updates and sometimes the mobile (cell for internationals) phones cannot receive msgs or make calls nor charge the battery. Our train system is being electrified, our neighbourhood banks are being closed with only online or ATM available. Cash is being called old fashioned and may be removed completely but when the supermarket cash registers aren't working how to buy food or drink? How to buy needed petrol when the bowsers don't work? With EV's, how to recharge when the grid is out. I don't think our governments are thinking of the future and are so keen to look modern that they are not doing due diligence nor risk assessment. I rue this fast run up to electrification, especially the total reliance on it. 😓
Oh I think they are thinking of the future. How do you buy food and drink? When they give you permission When do you get to run your air conditioning when it’s 108 outside? When they give you permission. When do you get energy to drive somewhere? When they give you permission.
And if you don’t toe the line, no permission for you.
I'm also concerned by foreign ownership of our utilities and here in WA we already have an intense shortage of electricians. Green energy is important but I just don't want us to experience like the East where people were left without services due to the decision to turn off the coal power plants. Especially not during 42° days...
With all the rooftop solar in Australia, people should be able to charge their cars or run the AC regardless of what's happening on the grid, as long as the system is designed to go on/off grid.
@@franciscodanconia4324 You sound a bit paranoid. License plate readers are everywhere now. If "they" want to stop you from driving, it wouldn't be difficult. I recommend not electing fascists if you don't like life under fascism.
Here in Switzerland local power lines have all been moved into the ground in the last 30 years. We basically only have huge high voltage lines on big towers out in the open. When I was a kid we got several power cuts a year. Now I see one a decade. Looking at the fires in Australia and now Hawaii makes me think that power lines out in the open really isn't a good idea.
So what youre saying is... we cant hold all our electric systems together with ducttape anymore!? Thats unamerican
You can hold it with duct tape and some super glue, but that shit's expensive
Of course you can,just need more duct tape.
Great insight
Excellent content.
Excellent analysis! I've been trying to explain to my Montgomery County, MD Council that the ban on natural gas stoves and push for EVs requires grid upgrades that that they haven't even considered, much less where the electricity for electric stoves and EVs will come from.
So Patrick. What I think you’re saying is “this pipe dream won’t work”.
Best place to put a wind farm is Washington DC lots of hot air and wind there.
CHEERS from AUSTRALIA
If we are to electrify everything we will need lots of nuclear power or other reliable base load power if hydro or geothermal potential exists. We will need to upgrade electrical grids.
From what I understand, we don't really have a problem with generation (except in dire cases). It's the lack of storage. If you think about it, basically all infrastructure is real-time power delivery. The best thing invest in would be storage. It would pay off in the immediate, and all that money for R&D would increase efficiency.
Or to- insulate, cap, bundle up, reduce and conserve. The wastefulness of lines is a reason for small power stations that are hybrid power and battery. And located near the community for efficiency. With storageBatterieBanks every few homes.
@@ch3burashka And Nuclear would help with that, since it can provide base load capacity, whereas solar/hydro all require storage, basically the more base load you have, the less you have to invest in storage.
At scale, wind is baseload power and has a lower lcoe than nuclear
That’s why pumped-hydro resevoirs may be key, either as new builds (any elevation change works including hilltops and old mine shafts) or by retrofitting existing dams.
Thank you for keeping up the beacon of logic and second order thinking.
Your videos are so useful
Very good analysis!
Still watching. This isn't a small topic and I expect Patrick to ignore some major aspects like efficiency, changes in urbanization etc.
One of the biggest changes that could be done to help with grid transmission issues would be switching much of the long transmission lines to HVDC. It allows much higher power transfer over the same size cable and lower losses.
Transmit at zillion volts. Less current, tinier wires. Power = Amps x Volts. P = IVy 👍🤓
One of the biggest changes that could be done to help with grid transmission issues would be no more personal cars and o more louries/trucks no more industry - see example of germany - deindustrialisation! solution is to go back to stone age!
It's also extremely expensive to build the endpoint stations, making HVDC only suitable for links spanning thousands of miles before they break even with AC on cost.
You REALLY need to move a ton of MWh from Texas to NY? Okay yeah that's probably HVDC territory. Seattle to Nevada though? It's a long way, but AC might actually be cheaper! No matter what though, it would be a mindbogglingly expensive endeavor. Grid infrastructure deployment is material and labor intensive.
@@bloomtom No problem @funtechu has it figured out and will pay the "endpoint stations" as he is so smart
@@bloomtomindeed, was going to make this exact point. Also, that transmission losses aren't that high for AC at less than 100km. HVDC really only starts to economically kick in beyond that.
People who can afford EVs in the US at this moment are also more likely to live in suburbs, where putting PV on their roofs makes much more sense than putting that PV at utility scale on the grid.
If this is going to work distributed energy generation, paired with utility software APIs, used for coordination, needs to play a much larger role.
You are limited to 6 watts per square meter for rooftop solar. The typical american home has a 240V single phase 60 amp service (90 amp service is common for larger homes). In order to adequately supply CURRENT electricity needs, you will need 2400 m2 of surface area pointed to the sun, or a 50 meter by 50 meter cube. Roof top solar is not going to work ever.
@@ericlefevre7741 6W/m2 how big do those 300-400W panels get then? Either way, if you have 10kW array and 10h of sunlight you get 100kWh which is about the size of Tesla battery and that is most certainly not 2400m2
@@ericlefevre7741 It is 1200 watts per square meter not six. Micro grids/ roof top solar will play vital role in future of energy.
@fulconandroadcone9488 that's 25 panels. You'll need a pretty large roof. Then you're getting 70-80% of that given the arc of the sun
@@ericlefevre7741every number in your post is wrong. I have 2 m^2 solar panels that create 365W each. I have 32 solar panels on my roof and they make 10kW midday and 70kWh over an entire day. An average home has a 200A service these days, with 100A being the minimum for smaller homes.
Dude, a fab in Arizona, where it's sunny all the time minus maybe 200 hours/yr + nights can install its own solar panels if they wanted to. This would also include the extra capacity stored in Redox Flow batteries which will become relatively cheap.
That puts almost no strain on electric demand and throwing that in to make a point is silly.
I want to upgrade my TV to 80" but I wouldn't put it in a video.
Excellent in depth and insightful video. My house backs up to a 169,000 volt power-line and a 121 acre park. While I love the park, I may want to sell and move if the power-line right of way is going to be carrying much more electricity at much higher voltages. Thank you for your Work, this was excellent.
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment that the infrastructure companies (power utilities, heavy industrial manufacturers, and construction companies) are going to be making big windfalls from this transition. Especially since there are many players that have a tight corner of the market. (No heavy utility grade transformer manufacturers exist in the united states anymore for example, but hopefully that will change soon.)
I also think you made some great examples demonstrating why depending on private vehicles as the cornerstone of transportation in the United States is likely not a scalable solution in the future. The Spot load for charging EVs is likely not going to be scalable into the future.
@@SigFigNewton Yup, the EVs don't make sense people are really making an argument for why private cars as the only transportation solution don't make sense. I think PB is making that kind of a subtle point, but maybe I'm reading into his words too much. (Also for the finance people, there's still a lot of money to be made in transit project even if they are not vroom vroom private cars.)
Also, aluminum cable is fine for well defined installations (like transmission.)
Correct
High voltage transmissions lines ARE NOT MADE OF COPPER, they are made of aluminium (alloy)
@@Vihara2 30 seconds of googling would show you that you're wrong.
@@Vihara2 Aha, a specialist is talking. You will be surprise how many high power cables are made of aluminum. It's the majority!
@@Vihara2 it's not it's resistance that counts but power loss, and if power loss
@@fgbhrl4907 usually i am a walking google for how various facets of STEM/politics/finance works, but this time i was wrong to jump to conclusions, aluminum is more plentiful than copper, but its still a finite resource that requires a greater financial investment long-term than allowing people to drive normal ICE vehicles around while the governments of the world stop falling for each overhyped fake green tech scam that wanders along.
Extremely relevant topic
Great video! Loved this topic, very eye opening...get a job close to the grid 👍
Walking, trains, buses, subways, cycles, light rail etc seems more feasable then everyone driving around in individual cars. We need to build different to save energy both in heating, cooling and transportation. Its a big project :/
Facts. Electric cars are not really the only solution. Building out public transportation and improving the infrastructure for cycling/walking will reduce the amount of cars needed, which then reduces the amount of energy/resources. Not really that popular in the US when compared to Europe 😊
Nobody's interested in living in your bughives. Either figure out how you're going to make them, or _let it go._
You've said it, HVAC demand already been sorted out by the relevant electrical authorities. Same will happen with EV charging demand. These days " Install a 4 kW reverse cycle AC and nobody bats an eye, install a 4kW EV charger and everyone loses their mind"
hahahahaha.....so true
Can someone explain what this comment means? What is HVAC? What is a reverse cycle AC?
@@AicyDCAn HVAC is an air conditioning unit. A reverse cycle AC is an AC unit that can both cool the air in summer and be a heat pump for warmth in winter
Are you tell me that a financial guy talking about non-financial topic is wrong? 😮😮😮
@@AicyDC H = Heating V = Ventilation AC = Air Conditioning
Why would you want to send power to the grid from your car battery?
Like any rechargeable battery, a car battery has only a limited number of loading cycles before it needs to be replaced.
So you are just throwing away one of the cycles for a compensation that will be lower than the cost to you.
On the other hand, if your boss gave you a company car... 🤘
Great videos, Patrick. I agree with your premise that Electricity producers and carriers and delivery companies will be the next wave of great investments. What I am not clear about is where the nuclear power generators are in this equation. I would love to see if we could have regional nuclear generators across US and in other countries carve out their dominance in electricity generation and have some sort of electricity carrier consortium rise up with well honed financial models to make all the electrification possible. After all, oil producers, refiners and distributors made their killing a while ago.....Thanks a mil.
As an electrical engineer, i found exactly no mistakes in your arguments.
In short: it won't work. no matter who believes what, the physics has the last laugh, period.
If the grid can handle peak supper hour demand: it can handle overnight car charging.
Edit: Assuming the car charging is load shed during the peak demand time of course.
Exactly. As an EE myself, I've always been very skeptical of this irrational push towards Electric cars. None of it makes any sense. It seems to make ignorant people feel good. What scares me most is stupid and ignorant people asserting themselves when they ought not to.
I was stoked for flying EV taxis and now I'm finding out my childhood dreams don't translate into economic realities.
I'm basically ok with this.
we killed the taxiindsutry for a company that cant turn a profit
Not only economics. Ever noticed how loud a helicopter or small plane is when you hear one flying overhead? Now look at the amount of cars you see on the roads and imagine the noise if thta was all planes.
Sadly, flying cars don't go well in reality
It's true but consider-- the tech stack and techniques that Uber has innovated on can be re-scaled and utilized by local taxi services so you can have, "Uber experience" but, "local, well-paid, fellow citizen driver"-- we see this in certain parts of the country. Relatedly there's a service out of Illinois that does local home delivery of Pepsi products out of its state distribution network. Vertically integrated but local is an idea worth trying me thinks.@@PazLeBon
I've got an even better take if you don't mind-- when we see those little planes overhead we forget that it's a small portion of people that are licensed for small aircraft; consider the idea that, "we already have flying cars" it's just that in real life they're called the small number of well-regulated personal aircraft we see all the time. "Flying cars" is a kind of statistical mismatching error where we idealize a world where everybody has a pilot's license and enough personal wealth (or a big engineering + planning project) to have their own personal aircraft or access to EVPAs through their phone. It's the same idea as, "why can't everyone be a rockstar or a film actor?" It's because that would devitalize our very idea of, "rockstar or film actor." The same is true of, "pilot!" #WalterBenjamin #Hegel #Pareto @@reappermen
This however does not devitalize our dreams or flying liberally and rocking out Live Forever style. It's just people need to grow up and get a fucking clue about real life.
How about looking at the demand for energy? The days of unlimited cheap energy are going away, no more "I'm driving the SUV to the store for a bag of ice" That is just stupid in a world of 7 Billion people (and growing). I suppose Cost will be the ultimate conservator, which will be interesting. A upcoming widening of the gap between haves and have-nots.