EV adoption will need major expansion of electricity grids

Little attention is paid to this outcome by leftist politicians

Electric vehicles (“EV’s”) are here to stay. Quiet, fast and with lower assembly costs than internal combustion engine (“ICE”) vehicles the rapid pace of advancement should surprise no one. Anyone who has driven a Tesla understands why EV’s are better technology.

Leftist politicians promote EV’s based on two specious assumptions:

1. CO2 causes climate change; and,

2. Converting all passenger cards to EV’s in USA will make a meaningful contribution to keeping global temperature from rising 1.5 deg. C. by materially reducing CO2 emissions.

Nonetheless, EV technology will become mainstream quickly enough, gated only by the availability of battery metals (a serious constraint), costs (a temporary barrier) and the inability of the electrical grid to support the increased demand (a problem that will take a long time to resolve).

U.S. electricity consumption in 2022 was just over 4 trillion Kilowatt Hours (KwH) and about 39% of that was residential demand.

Electric vehicles will put additional demand on the system. Since most EV charging is likely to happen at home, that demand will manifest itself in higher residential use of power. How much? About 25 to 35% more than current levels based on EIA and IEA data. Those data assume 80% of EV charging is at home, so the balance will add to the usage in the transportation sector. In total, expect the demand for power to require an expansion of the grid by approximately 1-2 trillion KwH if the entire fleet of personal vehicles (about 300 million) shift from ICE to EV powertrains.

Some estimates put the cost of upgrading the U.S. grid at about $7 trillion. Wind and solar provide about 12% of U.S. electricity generation, or about 48 billion KwH. Costs for so-called renewables are dropping but it still costs about $1,500 per KwH for wind and more for solar.

Source: EIA

Adding 1-2 trillion Kwh of capacity using wind and solar requires 50 - 100 times the amount of capacity installed so far on “renewables” which has taken decades, a goal that verges on the impossible. The reality is that most of the added power will have to come from fossil fuels, largely natural gas, or the unpopular nuclear option which is unlikely to happen. Stated simply, the shift to EV’s will increase the demand for fossil fuels but shift that demand from gasoline to natural gas.

I have no doubt that EV’s are the future of personal transportation. The oil displaced by an EV (about 474 gallons per ICE vehicle replaced) is offset by the added demand for natural gas (about 26 Mcf of natural to produce 3,500 KwH of electricity at 7.36 cubic feet of gas per KwH according to EIA). 474 gallons of gasoline = ~11 barrels of oil which at 433 Kg CO2 per barrel causes 4,886 Kg of CO2 emissions while 26 Mcf of natural gas burned as fuel produces less than half of that (.0549 metric tons CO2 per cubic foot ).

The net reduction in emissions if all 300 million ICE vehicles were swithed to EV’s at about 3,000 Kg/vehicle is ~900 million tonnes of CO2, less than 1 gigaton, the equivalent of 0.2 ppm of atmospheric CO2, which would have a negligible effect on temperature under the most extreme case of AGW theory and, since CO2 does not cause global warming, will have no effect whatsoever on climate. But it will affect the national debt by trillions of dollars before this charade ends.

It is wonderful to see the automobile industry develop new and exciting technology that will improve everyone’s driving experience. It is disappointing to see trillions of dollars of taxpayer money squandered on the promotion of this advance at the expense of money that could be used to improve health care, upgrade transportation infrastructure, build affordable homes or solve homelessness. But that is what you get when you vote Democrat in United States or Liberal in Canada. Give it some thought.

I am a big fan of EV’s but will wait until the charging network is competitive with gas stations in terms of both time and cost, and stick to my Mercedes cls450 for the time being. It won’t outrun a Tesla but will get me from Collingwood to Ottawa and back on one tank of gas. In the meantime, I will add a Tesla home charger to my garage so my visitors that drive EV’s can fuel up while they visit.