California regulators request EV charge pause, energy conservation for heat

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: beyondknowledge

originally posted by: schuyler
Charge at night. Plenty of power then. Charging stations at grocery stores is just stupid.

Where do you live where the sun is up at night? There aren't many people within the Arctic and Antarctica circles. Also how do you charge in the months without sun?

Good Lord! Does your electricity turn off at night? I can flip on a light switch at midnight and wonder of wonders! A light turns on! How can this be when it's DARK OUTSIDE!!!!! Of course, California is a bit different. Who knows? Maybe it's a bit different in that state.

You are missing the point here, #1 how can so few electric cars gum up Southern California's power grid, #2 what if you work at night and need your vehicle and can't charge it between those specific times? #3 most importantly again if charging less than 567,000 cars in southern California is going to collapse the grid, SoCal has some serious infrastructure issues that need to be addressed. #4 What happens when other areas have the same issues as more and more Electric vehicles hit the road? Phoenix sometimes has 100 days over 100 degrees for example.

a reply to: Blaine91555

The solution is nuclear power and they know it.

I disagree, to a point.

The temporary solution is nuclear power until we can develop something that doesn't have the limitations of being finite. There is only so much Uranium on this planet and it will run out eventually.

originally posted by: visitedbythem

originally posted by: Blaine91555
The solution is nuclear power and they know it. The plants need to be under construction immediately and they need to get rid of the process that makes permitting take a decade or more. They have to turn a deaf ear to the Sierra Club and stop the incessant lawsuits that drove the cost of energy up to what it is now and played a key role in causing the shortages.

Nuclear power is clean and safe and modern standards would make new plants truly safe and produce dirt cheap energy.

Solar and wind are great in the limited areas it's viable, but it will never cut it.

And it needs to be somewhere way the hell away from where I live.

The principal reason we're not all nuclear now is illiteracy about modern nuclear power. It's not the 1960s anymore.

It reminds me of the assault on the timber industry caused by similar illiteracy. The timber industry plants more than enough trees to replace what's cut and have done since the 1970s and yet people still use the old arguments just as they do with nuclear power.

In the 1890s people were terrified of the horseless carriages but they got over it, just like people need to realize nuclear energy now is nothing to be scared of.

a reply to: putnam6

It makes perfect sense - its California.

They already don't have enough energy to meet their needs, despite borrowing from neighboring states. So yeah, stop selling gas engine cars and switch the entire state to ev's - just don't charge them. Makes perfect democrat sense. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of using ev cars (because they are better for the environment) that are charged with energy created by fossil fuel power plants. Its just the typical moronic circle jerk of liberal politics. They should stick to banning plastic straws that come in a paper wrapper and replacing them with paper straws - that come in a plastic wrapper....

a reply to: schuyler

No my lights don't go off at night. I have a very large gas turban plant about a mile from my house.

California on the other hand does not like burning natural gas. They like solar and wind. Both are unreliable in output but solar generation is definitely not usable at night.

a reply to: myselfaswell

I still think now and then about the professor who in the early 1970s taught that we would run out of Uranium by the 1990s. No petroleum by 2010 and food shortages worldwide as we would run out of arable land by 2000. It was an accepted fact back then.

Of course, it's temporary, but we still need energy while our technology improves. The radical movements seem oblivious to the fact if they get their way, people will go hungry, people will go without heat and will go broke from inflation due to energy prices. We can't progress from a position of weakness. Those radicals filing all the lawsuits driving the prices up will be the death of us, not oil or nuclear energy.

originally posted by: Blaine91555

originally posted by: visitedbythem

originally posted by: Blaine91555
The solution is nuclear power and they know it. The plants need to be under construction immediately and they need to get rid of the process that makes permitting take a decade or more. They have to turn a deaf ear to the Sierra Club and stop the incessant lawsuits that drove the cost of energy up to what it is now and played a key role in causing the shortages.

Nuclear power is clean and safe and modern standards would make new plants truly safe and produce dirt cheap energy.

Solar and wind are great in the limited areas it's viable, but it will never cut it.

And it needs to be somewhere way the hell away from where I live.

The principal reason we're not all nuclear now is illiteracy about modern nuclear power. It's not the 1960s anymore.

It reminds me of the assault on the timber industry caused by similar illiteracy. The timber industry plants more than enough trees to replace what's cut and have done since the 1970s and yet people still use the old arguments just as they do with nuclear power.

In the 1890s people were terrified of the horseless carriages but they got over it, just like people need to realize nuclear energy now is nothing to be scared of.

I live in California. We have earthquakes. Ive seen some strong ones. My best friend lived next to Hiway 880. He came outside after a big quake and 880 had fallen. It wasnt there anymore. People were trapped inside, and people were crushed. People got thrown out their 2nd story windows. Ever been in a quake like that? You remember what happens when you lose cooling at a nuke plant. I was relieved when they shut down Rancho Seco

a reply to: Blaine91555

So, what exactly do you do with used nuclear fuel? No one has an answer yet other than just leave it in huge water cooling pools all around the nuclear plants.

a reply to: visitedbythem

They don't need to be in hazard zones. I agree with that.

I'm in Anchorage, AK so earthquakes are common, we had a 7.1 a few years ago centered here. I spent my college years near Los Angeles so I know all about that.

I was 48 miles from St. Helen's when it blew and I seem to be a disaster magnet, so I get ya.

a reply to: beyondknowledge

Yes, they do have solutions for that, ask the French. The problem is not whether they can safely store it because of course they can. The problem is nobody wants it around them.

It's like the people who want wind energy but will fight tooth and nail to keep it out of their area. Phonies IMO.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Well, considering drinking a single drop of gasoline will not kill you and a few atoms of nuclear fuel will, I don't blame them.

And what about the 120 + tons of coal that it takes to make every wind mill? Wind power is a very dirty technology.

a reply to: Blaine91555

The plants need to be started five years ago... I did some side job work for a nuclear plant here, two years ago. And its still not even close to being done. And about four years ago they were doing massive pipe work for it. Nuclear plants take a long time to build, especially the safer ones.

But I agree, until we can harness the power of the sun, oceans, and such nuclear is the way.

a reply to: putnam6

Plants LOVE Co2 , it Gives them their Life Essence . Man Provides them with it through Technology . A Symbiotic Relationship that Benefits Both Parties . In Nature , there are Balances , so why Not in Man too ? It's Called Mutual Compromises for the Benefit of All ..

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
a reply to: Blaine91555

So, what exactly do you do with used nuclear fuel? No one has an answer yet other than just leave it in huge water cooling pools all around the nuclear plants.

Not true.

There is a type of nuclear plant that actually runs on the spent fuel rods from other power plants. They were banned in this country, thank you jane fonda, mainly out of ignorance. The problem with these types of plants is they can be used to create enriched weapons grade materials. They can also be used to eliminate nuclear waste in the form of spent fuel rods but lets just forget about that....

When two fissionable masses are in close proximity fission can occur. When fission occurs fast neutrons are emitted which, in typical power plants, just fly through the reactor and harmlessly embed themselves in the reactor walls. These are called fast neutrons. Eventually the walls of the reactor need to be repaired but that is the extent of their affect. However, in the presence of a moderator, such as D2O (deuterium oxide), graphite, etc, the fast neutrons slow down and become thermal neutrons. Thermal neutrons can alter the construct of non-fissionable mass, about 95% of the average fuel rod, and mutate it into something fissionable. This new fissionable mass is then used to maintain the fission in the reactor, releasing more fast neutrons, which become thermal neutrons, and create more fissionable mass.

this is unlike our present nuclear plants which constantly need a new supply of fissionable mass to maintain fission. These plants only need to be primed one time, then they create their own fuel from the spent fuel rods of other plants. This is of course oversimplified but you get the idea.

Some people use the Chernobyl incident as a reason to avoid these types of plants. Chernobyl had a whole slew of issues that put it in the "special" category. In reality, a run-away meltdown would be nearly impossible with this type of plant if the moderator was D2O. All you would have to do is dump the moderator from the core. Without the moderator, ongoing fission can not create thermal neutrons. Which means when the existing fissionable mass expires, fission ends.

It's fairly simple take the gas consumption of ca give it 28% efficacy the low end and convert that to MW ... Yea good luck with that on the current technology

Not even nuclear is going to pull that off

No, no, no, NO!!

That is all FUD from Big Oil. (Hell, coal has bit the dust and nobody seems to care. Why should OIL be any different?? Oh, yeah… money! Who cares!! THEY don’t need more money while the environment suffers. Dumb bastids! How much money is enough?? Think: We are not cleaning the atmosphere because it is “too expensive” (erm, it don’t make rich people richer).

Get a cheap, abundant energy source and that “too expensive” argument goes the way of the butter churn!!

It is not nuclear fission… it is nuclear fusion!

Then we suck the half redox oxy-CO2 reaction out of the atmosphere and finish the reaction to make useful fuels like methanol and jet fuel (or its adjuncts).

Until we do that it is still the “robber baron’s” world that we are paying into!

Nuclear fusion makes these arguments moot! (And work as we now know it. And the dumb bastids that think that they can still benefit don’t understand the end of money. It really is a Star Trek future!!)

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: putnam6

originally posted by: schuyler
Charge at night. Plenty of power then. Charging stations at grocery stores is just stupid.

This isn't about just this Labor Day weekend it's more about the future as more and more cars being charged stress the power grid. More cars means more stress on the grid at lower and lower temperatures

you are indeed correct because everybody goes home in California and in bed by 6pm

ANOTHER ONE. Is it something in the water??? I can't believe this has to be explained. Look at a friggn' graph of power usage. When is the peak power demand? After work until bedtime. WHEN IS THE POWER DEMAND LOW? Midnight until 6AM. So charge the car then when demand is low and you're not competing with washers and dryers, showers, and stoves. In some places the cost is even lower during these low-demand times.

My apologies you are indeed correct, it's not going to be a problem at all, nor should there be. After all, shouldn't one of our largest regions have a sufficient power grid and management already to handle a million electric vehicles? Just charge those less than 600,000 vehicles 8 hours overnight and voilà...so

Why does it seem like SoCal can't handle less than that many currently? (pardon the pun). It makes no sense, please read the article below it explains why our grid should have plenty of juice. I'll highlight what I deem to be pertinent points. Even in the article, the potential problems have nothing to do with people charging at peak hours because it's already assumed there will be people charging at times spread out throughout the day organically

www.forbes.com... 75ecb4a7862

In 2020, there were 286.9 million cars registered in America. In 2020, while the US grid had 1,117.5TW of utility electricity capacity and 27.7GW of solar, according to the US Energy Information Administration. If all the cars were EVs charging at 7kW, they would need 2,008.3TW – nearly twice the grid capacity. If they charged at 50kW, they would need 14,345TW – 12.8 times the capacity.


However, in 2020, the US grid generated 4,007TWh of electricity. Americans drive further on average than Brits – 13,500 miles per year, according to the US Department of Transport’s Federal Highway Administration. That means an American car, if it were an EV, would need 3,857kWh per year, assuming the average efficiency figures above. If all US cars were EVs, they would need a total of 1,106.6TWh, which is 27.6% of what the American grid produced in 2020. US electricity consumption hasn’t shrunk in the same way since 2005 as it has in the UK, but it is clearly not unfeasible for all American cars to be EVs. The US grid could cope too.

After all, the transition to electric isn’t going to happen overnight. The sales of EVs are growing fast, with for example more plug-ins sold in the UK in 2021 so far than the whole of the previous decade (2010-19) put together. Battery-electric vehicles are closing in on 10% of the market in the UK, and they were already 77.5% of new cars sold in Norway in September 2021. But that is new cars, leaving the vast majority of cars on the road fossil fuel powered. A gradual introduction is essential, too, because an overnight switchover would require a massive ramp up in charge point installation, particularly devices for people who don’t have the luxury of home charging. This will require considerable investment, but could be served by lots of chargers on street lamps, which allegedly only cost £1,000 ($1,300) each to install, usually with no need for extra wiring.

originally posted by: Zanti Misfit
a reply to: putnam6

Plants LOVE Co2 , it Gives them their Life Essence . Man Provides them with it through Technology . A Symbiotic Relationship that Benefits Both Parties . In Nature , there are Balances , so why Not in Man too ? It's Called Mutual Compromises for the Benefit of All ..

Actually, plants crave Brawndo. It's got electrolytes.

It is Nuclear power and Hydrogen power using Solar panels to split the water so as use the Sun to add the extra energy the process would lose if it depended on just a battery to run the device needed to create H2 and O2 gasses for a combustion chamber.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
The solution is nuclear power and they know it. The plants need to be under construction immediately and they need to get rid of the process that makes permitting take a decade or more. They have to turn a deaf ear to the Sierra Club and stop the incessant lawsuits that drove the cost of energy up to what it is now and played a key role in causing the shortages.

Nuclear power is clean and safe and modern standards would make new plants truly safe and produce dirt cheap energy.

Solar and wind are great in the limited areas it's viable, but it will never cut it.