Electric Cars ~ Unintended Consequences

[Texsox]

I was talking with a couple family members who are buying Teslas and it sparked a few thoughts.

 

One, while the car does not pollute, the generation of the electricity to make it run does pollute. This isn't really a 100% win for the environment.

 

The addition of corn into gasoline eventually caused the price of corn to rise. Basically the people who were putting it in their tanks harmed the people who were putting corn in their bellies with higher prices for corn. So what happens when the demand for electricity to power vehicles rises? With increased demand usually comes increased prices. Migt we all be paying higher rates ten or twenty years down the road whether we have electric cars or not.

 

Another issue, much of how we pay to maintain and add roads his by taxes on gas and diesel. If we see a sizable decline in those tax revenues, how will we adapt to fund roads?

[Balta1701]

I was talking with a couple family members who are buying Teslas and it sparked a few thoughts.

 

One, while the car does not pollute, the generation of the electricity to make it run does pollute. This isn't really a 100% win for the environment.

 

The addition of corn into gasoline eventually caused the price of corn to rise. Basically the people who were putting it in their tanks harmed the people who were putting corn in their bellies with higher prices for corn. So what happens when the demand for electricity to power vehicles rises? With increased demand usually comes increased prices. Migt we all be paying higher rates ten or twenty years down the road whether we have electric cars or not.

 

Another issue, much of how we pay to maintain and add roads his by taxes on gas and diesel. If we see a sizable decline in those tax revenues, how will we adapt to fund roads?

1. I have the outlet in my garage waiting for the car. I'm going solar panel shopping next spring. The US has more than enough sunlight, wind, and hydropower to provide every bit of transit energy we need...IF we can store that energy overnight. And, a car has a battery that can store energy overnight. This can work with a smart enough electric grid.

 

2. Furthermore, I don't think a world where 75% of the electricity we use is powered by solar, wind, and hydro, while 25% is powered by natural gas, is a very bad world. This planet apparently has an ungodly amount of methane stored in the ground and that's a resource we will still need to pull from the ground to generate fertilizers and plastics.

 

3. You are 100% right that our method of funding roads needs to change, but this has also been true for the last 20 years because politicians have been generally unwilling to raise gas taxes to keep up with inflation. As a consequence, road construction is becoming a larger general fund expense. This has already been happening, so if we have a problem with that, why haven't we removed the politicians who won't raise the gas taxes to keep up with inflation? At this point, it's just going to transfer to the general fund, paid for by income taxes.

[Texsox]

While that is a nice picture the current reality is coal (dying out), oil, nuclear, and blocking rivers for hydro. I was surprised to learn there are two reactors being built with about twenty more being planned. So while we both will agree that solar and wind is prefered, that may not be reality. Consumers will take cheap electricity being produced any which way when their demands increase.

 

[Balta1701]

While that is a nice picture the current reality is coal (dying out), oil, nuclear, and blocking rivers for hydro. I was surprised to learn there are two reactors being built with about twenty more being planned. So while we both will agree that solar and wind is prefered, that may not be reality. Consumers will take cheap electricity being produced any which way when their demands increase.

The reactors currently under construction are happening because they have received a huge subsidy from the rate-payers who are paying FAR above market rates to make those reactors come online.

 

None of the other 20 will be built, or if they are built, they will be built at terrible losses. Nuclear power is simply not cost effective, it's so far from cost effective right now that it's barely worth talking about. You're in Texas with a competitive power market - there will never, ever be a nuclear plant constructed in Texas because it can't compete with just adding solar plants on every walmart.

 

This isn't going to change. The cost of building a nuclear plant is rising faster than inflation, while (barring executive action) the cost of wind and solar is going down. Gas is basically staying constant. And that doesn't take into account the huge subsidy the federal government provides - leaving the plants not liable if they explode and paying them huge sums because they haven't figured out how to safely deal with the waste.

 

Nuclear power in this country is either dead or only exists because your local government decided they wanted to give it a huge subsidy.

[caulfield12]

69% of electricity in China is generated from coal. Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are all more than 90 percent reliant on coal for energy, Tsinghua’s research showed.

 

80% in India.

 

A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus petrol-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better.

 

“International experience shows that cleaning up the air doesn’t need to rely on electric vehicles,” said Los Angeles-based An Feng, director of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation. “Clean up the power plants.”

 

China plans to convert the grid to renewable fuel or clean-coal technology as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2020.

 

That will speed the green impact of electric vehicles, said environmental science professor Huo Hong at the elite Tsinghua university. But that goal will be “really difficult to achieve.”

 

Tsinghua’s studies call into question the wisdom of aggressively promoting vehicles which the university said could not be considered environmentally friendly for at least a decade in many areas of China unless grid reform accelerates.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-po...g-idUSKCN0V51BH

 

 

Wind power takes the longest amount of time to pay off return on investment...geothermal is more commonly discussed as a solution in other areas of the world, like India.

 

So we’re back to what Jimmy Carter was attempting to push in the late 1970’s (solar), along with wind and likely natural gas. The problem is there was so much of a rush into this area (solar) a decade ago that both the US and China produced way too many panels and supply outstripped demand. So how to make solar more popular again...giving rebates/discounts for purchases of electric cars or solar panel installation can help, but is it enough?

 

Finally, another aspect not being taken into account is the technology apps ramping up electricity usage related to Bitcoin mining.

Edited January 1, 2018 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

While that is a nice picture the current reality is coal (dying out), oil, nuclear, and blocking rivers for hydro. I was surprised to learn there are two reactors being built with about twenty more being planned. So while we both will agree that solar and wind is prefered, that may not be reality. Consumers will take cheap electricity being produced any which way when their demands increase.

 

Natural gas has been expanding substantially for years now and is largely what's replacing coal. It's the cheapest energy on the market. I don't know that there's much of a push for new hydro, either, given that all of the best sources are already dammed.

 

There were four reactors being built, but Westinghouse went bankrupt building two of them at VC Summer last year and that project was stopped. South Carolina rate payers will be paying for the half-built reactors for years. Their was a coming "nuclear renaissance" in 2005/2006 with a ton of planned expansion, but the economic collapse in 2008 followed by ridiculously cheap natural gas and dropping costs for wind and solar have basically killed it. Even some fully functional nuclear plants are shutting down because they just can't compete on a cost basis. Kewaunee and Vermont Yankee have both shuttered within recent years, SONGS and Crystal River shut down after failed upgrades, Diablo Canyon announced they're not going to extend their license beyond 2025 (or whenever it expires).

[Jenksismyhero]

The reactors currently under construction are happening because they have received a huge subsidy from the rate-payers who are paying FAR above market rates to make those reactors come online.

 

None of the other 20 will be built, or if they are built, they will be built at terrible losses. Nuclear power is simply not cost effective, it's so far from cost effective right now that it's barely worth talking about. You're in Texas with a competitive power market - there will never, ever be a nuclear plant constructed in Texas because it can't compete with just adding solar plants on every walmart.

 

This isn't going to change. The cost of building a nuclear plant is rising faster than inflation, while (barring executive action) the cost of wind and solar is going down. Gas is basically staying constant. And that doesn't take into account the huge subsidy the federal government provides - leaving the plants not liable if they explode and paying them huge sums because they haven't figured out how to safely deal with the waste.

 

Nuclear power in this country is either dead or only exists because your local government decided they wanted to give it a huge subsidy.

 

They employ thousands of people and regularly hire thousands of contractors during outages. There are huge local economic ramifications for closing the plants, so the human element comes into play.

[Balta1701]

They employ thousands of people and regularly hire thousands of contractors during outages. There are huge local economic ramifications for closing the plants, so the human element comes into play.

For already open nuclear plants - the cost of building them has already been paid. That can be a reason to keep it open. The cost of a new one is something like $10-$20 billion right now, that cost is enormous.

 

There will be other reasons to operate some of them - generation of radioactive isotopes for medical purposes, for example.

 

But, these plants are, for the most part, going the way of coal plants. They are not cost competitive and you as a republican would obviously that governments subsidizing jobs that aren't cost-competitive is not a way to run even a local economy for long.