We can sum the whole concept up with just one question: What happens when the power goes out? No one seems to ask or answer that question: Not if but when we experience it on a grand scale only will we find out. The mass scale of Electric vehicles (EV) waiting to come on the road is just a few years away. Infrastructure to charge these vehicles though is probably five to ten years behind some cases more throughout the world.Â
First is the hidden fact that an EV is only as clean as what is charging the vehicle. Including the United States (although lessening) vast portions of the world’s electricity is created by coal and or outdated utilities. Electricity does not create itself; it needs a source. The source for all those cars to charge is fossil fuels. Renewables alone cannot replace the grid with the number of megawatts required. I don’t think it’s been added up yet.
That’s just the source of the electricity, now the creation of that wattage adds another layer to reality. Are the world’s utilities and power plants up to the charge, probably not. A power plant requires a huge amount of time and money to build, maintain, or convert to alternate fuel keeping up with current demand alone is expensive and complex. Coal will spike worldwide, fuels will spike, and renewables can’t sustain the grid on their own for some time to come.
Electricity has become a commodity. Prices will fluctuate according to supply and demand. Will consumers be accommodating to these highs and lows on their monthly utility bills? Most likely not or not for long. Holiday prices, summer vs. winter mileage, prime time vs. down time…. market forces all will price accordingly. Will a watt be priced the same as oil, and other gasoline equivalents? Will a tax be levied? Is a utility now an energy company let’s say buying its lng from an energy company, making and storing the electricity somewhere in the grid, and finally resell it to the service stations (oil companies) whom are now customers? Or is it the other way around: Is an energy company now a utility buying the machinery or utility itself to make that same electricity to sell to the consumer? I don’t think that’s been worked out yet.
Now move to distribution. Leaving the power plant watts or power must move from that source by cables that get thinner and lesser along the way to the service stations that barely exist or home charging stations. Finally, the service stations (extremely few) or the utility has the last mile dilemma getting the electricity into the vehicle itself. Oil companies and or utilities I’m supposing will eventually figure it out. Charging stations are expensive and the faster the charge the more expensive the station. How long will the consumer want to wait, not very long.
Newer underground cables require a huge amount of time, money, and regulation to install. Older above ground lines wear thinner the farther away you go. Constant maintenance is required keep to free of debris or collapsing, and don’t have the capacity to pass along the demand for the ultimate number of watts required. The probable cause of the devastating California wildfires was worn lines failing. Increased electrification will only exasperate the situation.
With millions of EVs expected what per cent will have actual access to electricity or charging stations? Overall very few. Two family homes, on street parking, tenement housing, apartment buildings, older homes….. How will those outlets and chargers be reached, and upgraded to handle the increased demand? Electrical systems failing are one of the most common causes of a building or home fire.
Chargers have to be purchased and installed by the millions a massive and costly undertaking on its own. Then the electrical systems must be redone to handle that demand. I don’t think many office or apartment buildings were built with all those stations in mind. Add on the maintenance and insuring of those stations. The list can go on, but we’ll end it with now look at the electric bill for the month. The spike of increased usage and cost will be a steep upward spike more than enough to set off any algorithms.
Finally, the biggest threat today to corporations and governments is no longer just stealing names and addresses but to crippling entire computer systems. Systems that provide essential services, airports, ports, hospitals, corporations, governments, have all been hacked and shut down. Nothing is immune, the more the security is upgraded the more sophisticated the hacker becomes. The utilities will become targets of the hidden enemy. Power plants may get shutdown, the grid might get put out of order. You see on news reports now on a regular basis of corporations and government offices that have been hacked (a new insurance has been developed cyber security but at an extremely high premium). I’m not an electrical engineer or computer scientist so leave that in the hands of our security systems personnel and hope for the best.
All this comes with leaving out batteries and the new supply chain, ethical investors beware. Those are their own stories. And now wrap all this up with the one unanswered question at the start: What happens not if but when the power goes out? I don’t think there is an answer or one we don’t want to imagine. Reflect on the Arab oil embargo in 1973 may give us a clue.
