Category Archives: Personal Automobiles

Data Centers and Artificial Intelligence-Stop Energy Transition Part 3

Posted on October 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

ENERGY

The United States of America is built on energy. Primarily produced by fossil fuels.  The transportation area, cars, trucks, airplane, ships, etc. are propelled by gasoline, jet fuel, diesel oil, bunker fuel, propane, etc., all fossil fuels.  Transportation is 90% reliant on fossil fuels. About 60% of the Electricity is produced by fossil fuels.  Quoting Denny Ervin:   “Economies and standards of living hinge on having an adequate, economic, and reliable energy source—attributes that are non-negotiable for an optimal energy infrastructure. Our current trajectory risks creating inadequate, unaffordable, and unreliable energy supplies, which would devastate the U.S. economy and standard of living”.

Mr. Ervin has hit the nail on the head

Electricity Generation

The US generated 4.18Trillion Kilowatt hours in 2023.  A trillion Kilowatt-hour are called Petawatt hour.  That means that it is 4.18 followed by 15 zeros.  Because billing is usually done in kilo watts hours-,  it would be 4.18 Tera kilowatt-hours or as it is expressed in the  graph, 4.18 trillion kilowatt hours.   These vast numbers are here to stay.    Primer: Kilo is a thousand; Mega is a million; Giga is a billion; Tera is trillion and Peta is a quadrillion.

The primary source was thermals (natural gas, coal  and petroleum) at 60%, Nuclear added 18.6 %.   The renewables came in at 21.4 %.   Within that renewables list is Wind and solar and they are the rising sources.  They came sourced at 14.1%   They are non-dispatchable, meaning that their generation is a  wild card function of the weather.

Artificial Intelligence Creates Demand For Electricity

Power generation in 2023 was slightly lower than the 2022 generation.  Why? Due to higher price of electricity and use of power saving devices like LED bulbs.  But the demand is forecasted to increase soon and require a lot of additional generating sources, and transmission lines to carry the increase.   This increase is attributed to data center growth.  There are an estimated 2700 data centers in the US.  Data centers are the backbone of the digital world.  They host the internet from not only the US but a big share of the World’s internet.  It is in data centers where the Clouds store data for businesses and websites are housed. A large new power demand is forecasted for the Artificial Intelligence (AI).   DataCenterDynamics says that data center power consumption in the US is set to reach 35GW by the end of the decade, almost double its 2022 level.

Goldman Sachs posted on 13 May 2024, “AI is showing ‘very positive’ signs of eventually boosting GDP and productivity”.   That feeling seems to be universal.  The posting says: “Some of the academic literature and economic studies that have looked at the increase in productivity that we’ve seen following AI adoption, in a few specific cases, supports our view that large productivity gains are possible. The average increase in productivity is about 25%. Case studies of companies that have adopted AI imply similarly large efficiency gains. And so, you know, there’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic. It will just take a little bit more time to see these productivity gains realized.”

That is an incredible gain.  The nation must do what it takes to accomplish that goal. 

Techopedia predicts that the US gain the most:

Techopedia offers why the US will dominate.

“The US leads the way, reflecting its size, private and public investment in research and development, and the talent nurtured by its higher education system”.

Techopedia offers why the US will dominate.

There are impediments to AI success.

The major impediment is the Energy Transition from thermal sources to renewable sources. 

There are 3 major actors in this transition.  First is the Administration putting up big subsidies to make solar cells and wind turbines installations to assure Crony Capitalist will make money.   Second is the EPA that writes regulations that force the demise of reliable thermal sources, particularly coal based.  And lastly are the States that write laws, that are ill thought-out, declarations of what sources are allowed, what percentage and the time line.  See here and here. This triple bogey is not escaping notice.  The grid operators have been telling everyone that their systems are headed for collapse.   FERC has been telling the same story.  But the Governmental bodies believe themselves to know more about the grids than the grid operators. The companies that are planning to spend vast sums of money to bring AI online seem to be aware of this huge pothole in the road to delivery.  They need electricity that is reliable, and they need it now.  That can only come from thermal sources. The WSJ front page on October 1, 2024 posted “AI fever abates in stocks’ latest quarter.” The stock market sees that AI is not unfolding as was forecast.  You can bet that China is going to provide the power to their AI plans.

The Daily Caller posts: “‘Inevitable And Foreseeable’: Grid Operators Beg Court To Nix EPA Rules To Save Electricity System From Collapse”:

“The Biden-Harris administration says that its stringent power plant rules won’t harm long-term power reliability, but four grid operators stated the exact opposite in a legal brief filed Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its aggressive emissions rules for America’s power plants in April, saying at the time that the regulations would “improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity.” However, four major regional grid operators argued the exact opposite in an amicus brief filed in support of red states’ legal challenge against the rule, stating explicitly that the rules will jeopardize Americans’ ability to reliably secure sufficient amounts of power if they are enforced as is”

Specifically, the EPA’s rules will mandate existing coal plants to harness 90% of their emissions by 2032 if they want to stay open past 2039, and they will also require new natural gas-fired plants to do the same in order to stay open past 2039, according to the agency. The EPA is essentially requiring power plants to meet those emissions cuts using carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, which the four grid operators contend is too expensive and unproven to be mandated on such a tight timeline.”  

The EPA is setting up rules that require the operators to use unproven systems (CCS). Coal plants in operation now provide low cost energy. They provide dispatchable electricity.  They have a distinct advantage in that they usually have several months of coal stored at their site.  Gas units normally do not have a storage that could be used if there is an interruption in the supply line. Nuclear sourced electricity has many months, perhaps as long as a year on plant fuel

The Energy Bad Boys posted:” PJM, MISO, SPP, and ERCOT Join the Legal Fight Against EPA’s Carbon Rules”. 

“The four— PJM, the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)— stretch from New Jersey to parts of New Mexico and serve more than 156 million Americans in their respective service territories.

“The rules on carbon dioxide emissions are not the only regulations threatening the viability of the existing thermal fleet.  Under the Biden-Harris administration, the EPA has written or updated regulations like the Ozone Transport Rule, the Coal Combustion and Residual Rule, and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, all of which are designed to place enough straws on the backs of reliable coal-fired power plants to compel their owners to shut them down”.

 

AI builders Must Have Reliable Energy Sources

Here are some appeals for reliability:

Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of Black Rock Investment Management Corporation said no to renewables. Fink spoke at the World Economic Forman that AI will be big and profitable.  He wants the suppliers for his operations to use only dispatchable energy sources because they are reliable sources of power 24/7. 

Dominion CEO Robert Blue said: “We’re going to continue to be a big builder of renewables. We’re building a big offshore wind farm. We’re building a lot of solar. We’re adding a lot of storage. … But we also recognize that we’re going to need some more natural gas in order to keep the lights on.”  In addition to developing more natural gas plants to balance power grids from expansions of intermittent renewables, rising demands are also delaying some retirement of coal plants.

Dominion wants to build a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant in Chesterfield County, where a coal plant closed last year, stating that the addition is critically important for reliability.  Significant costs for these increased power demands — including transmission infrastructures — will be passed on to household and business consumers.

“Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, three of the largest AI data center users, have previously criticized a proposal by utility company Georgia Power to expand natural gas use at the expense of hurting their renewable energy programs. The problem is that those centers require huge amounts of reliable electricity to operate, and no nearly adequate hydrocarbon replacement exists. As former Microsoft vice president Brian Janous observes, whereas “No data center wants to be tied to the need for new fossil resources, that’s the problem… You can’t throw this much [data-center] capacity at the system and not have some degree of fossil resources to support it.”

Amazon states that their data centers are powered by renewable energy.  This seems improbable as the industry knows that renewable energy is not dispatchable. They are using a ploy that is provided to make companies feel good about themselves while using fossil fuels.  Its called RECs.  The RECs provide certified proof that you’re using renewable energy from the grid without installing solar panels or other renewable energy systems at your home or business

 Amazon invests in renewable energy projects that generate electricity, which is then fed into the grid. They then purchase or are allocated an equivalent amount of energy from the grid for their use. This is often done through renewable energy certificates (RECs), which represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource.

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration, largely through the perversely titled “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA), is providing massive and unsustainable economic incentives to move the electric generation market towards virtually exclusive reliance upon renewable energies (wind and solar in particular) plus batteries.  However, such forms of electric energy pose inherent problems; especially to the ultra-high electric energy “purity” requirements of AI/data centers. Data centers and AI generally require nine-nines reliability and quality metrics such as voltage, frequency, harmonics, etc.

Summary

The US electricity generation is forecast to have a large new demand to power data centers.

Major grid operators are going to court to cancel EPA rules.  They said this must be done or their girds will collapse. 

Data center owners/operators recognize that their systems must have dispatchable,  reliable electricity.  Renewables are not dispatchable.

Next part will examine the non dispatchable  wind and solar .

cbdakota.

Leave a comment

Posted in Electrical grid, Electricity, Electricity from Coal, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, government subsidies, Grid, Nuclear Energy, Personal Automobiles, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

Tagged , , , ,

Battery Life and Replacement–It’s the EV battery Stupid, Part 4

Posted on December 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

I think that the industry has not had enough experience to accurately predict life of an EV battery.

Consumer Affairs speaks to this issue in their July, 2023 blog titled “EV battery replacement cost”.  Their findings are summarized:

“We reached out to five mechanics and technicians from different parts of the U.S. to see how much an EV battery replacement costs for different vehicles, and the average results ranged from $4,489 all the way to a staggering $17,658.

  • All EV batteries will eventually fail to hold a charge and require replacement.
  • It’s hard to pinpoint how long EV batteries will last, but most have a life span between eight and 15 years.
  • Sourcing a replacement EV battery from anyone but your car’s manufacturer is nearly impossible, which is the main reason replacement costs are so high.
  • EV battery repair is a growing industry that may help you avoid the high cost of a replacement, but it’s not commonly available yet.
  • The Federal Government requires the car maker to guarantee 100,000 miles or 8 years whichever comes first. Some warranties only cover the EV battery if it no longer holds a charge at all, while others will cover the replacement of any EV battery that has dropped below 60% or 70% of its maximum capacity.

I do not think that a used EV buyer would have any guarantee on battery that had already met one of those stipulations.

The following chart was assembled by Consumer Affairs after interviewing mechanics around the country.  It may look strange to be dealing with 2014 EVs but that reflects the car’s age using the battery. The Prius is a hybrid with a small ICE engine and a battery combination.

          VehicleAverage parts costAverage labor costAverage total cost
          2014 Tesla Model S$13,500$1,500$15,000
          2014 Nissan Leaf$17,269$388$17,657
          2014 Toyota Prius$3,858$631$4,489

Next Car’s June 2022 posting, “EV Batteries 101: Degradation, lifespan, warranties and more” echos Consumer Affairs posting.  NEXT Car adds:  

“Buying a used Tesla with close to or more than 100,000 miles on the odometer, or holding onto the one you already own out of warranty, is a much riskier decision given the high cost of repairs”. 

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

EV Battery Charging–Its The Battery, Stupid. Part 3

Posted on December 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation says there are approximately 100,000 public charging ports in the US. The Federal Government is attempting to provide more.  The Fed’s target is 500,000 charging ports. If there were more charging stations, there would be less range anxiety.

The rough number of gasoline/diesel filling stations is 145,000.  Well, if it feels like there is a filling station almost anywhere, why would there need to have 500,000 charging ports?  The answer is because it takes so long to recharge the battery.

The Biden Administration’s plan to put up 500,000 charging ports will probably take a while to accomplish.  Currently, the plan is for each State to install a charging station along their major highways, 50 miles apart. Further, a charging station must be within a mile of an on and off Interstate intersection.

A private party that wants to operate a charging station picks a site for the station.  The site is approved. The Feds will pay up to 80% of the cost and the private party must pay 20% or more.  These stations can cost up to $1million.  Each station must have a minimum of 4 charging ports.

The API says that the average fill-uptakes 2 minutes for an ICE vehicle. Then that vehicle could go 300 to 400 miles of highway driving. 

Examining the EV owner’s options for recharging the battery so as it has range of 350 miles.  (Hour charge to miles range from US Department of Transportation-Charger types and speed.)

Level 1 Minimum cost using house AC outlet.  One hour provides 2.5 miles of range.  So about 6 days to get charged to 350 miles range.

Level 2 Purchasing a charger/installation required. 240-volt system, a home installation.  One hour provides 10 to 20 miles of range.   Using the 20 miles per hour charge would need 17 hours to get 350 miles range.

Level 3 Fast DC.  The public stations are mostly at this level.   One hour charge provides about 180-to-240-mile range. Using 240 mile per hour charge would take about an hour and a half to get 350 miles range.

Tesla Supercharger. Dedicated Tesla charging points.  One hour would give 1000 miles range. The 350-mile range would be done in about 20 minutes.

 Some thoughts:

  • Anyone that buys an EV and uses a level1 must have more money than that sense. For certain, that person has an ICE car in the garage.  The EV is for show.
  • If you buy an EV and you live in an apartment, where you only have street parking, you would have to go to public charging stations.
  • Level 2 requires a professional  installation with costs that can be steep, often a thousand dollars or more.  The charger itself isn’t free.     
  •  Level 3.  If you use FastDC you will spend more money for charges than if you use a level 2 installed system using your cheaper home electricity.
  •  Very important: routine charging with Superchargers and Fast DC degrades the batteries to the point they won’t be able to hold their charge as long.  The fast chargers heat up the battery and that can cause loss of battery range. Tesla says that you should use these fast chargers sparingly.
  • Every charge degrades the battery’s capacity a little.  From Wikipedia:

Capacity loss or capacity fading is a phenomenon observed in rechargeable battery usage where the amount of charge a battery can deliver at the rated voltage decreases with use.[1][2]

In 2003 it was reported the typical range of capacity loss in lithium-ion batteries after 500 charging and discharging cycles varied from 12.4% to 24.1%, giving an average capacity loss per cycle range of 0.025–0.048% per cycle.[3]

  • Public charging stations are often not close to an available place that you can retire to, while you wait for your battery to get charged.  Think of sitting in your car in inclement weather, either hot or cold.
  • Public charging stations are not always reliable. The following is from

. Findings from a 2022 University of California, Berkely study showed that one-quarter of public chargers in the San Francisco Bay Area didn’t work due to “unresponsive or unavailable screens, payment system  failures, charge initiation failures, network failures, or broken connectors”. 

The cause may be lack of income the company gets from charging EVs. The US numbers of EVs on the road are not as many as was predicted.

Charging time is very long.  Charging stations are inadequate for even the small number of EVs on the road.  The fast chargers are desirable, but their use shortens the life of the battery.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in Batteries, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, President Biden, US Auto Manufacturers

Tagged , , , , , ,

Range is the Rage: Its The EV Battery, Stupid

Posted on December 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Range is the Rage

Car and Driver say that range is the all-important stat.  Car and Driver posting goes on to say:

 “Whether or not you make it to the next public charging spot, are able to complete your daily commute, or are instead stranded on the side of the road depends on it.

Range is so heavily scrutinized because EVs can travel on average barely half the distance of gas-powered vehicles before they require a “fill-up,” and because gas pumps are far more ubiquitous than fast chargers”.

The amount of charge of the EV’s battery is akin to the amount of gasoline (or diesel) in the ICE’s (internal compbution engine)tank.  The battery charge will determine how many miles your EV can go before it is exhausted. That is equivalent to an ICE running empty of gasoline. Many postings by EV owners are about trying to find an EV battery charging station before the battery is “empty”. see here and here and here .Pretty agonizing and unlike the feeling you have, that there is a gasoline station almost anywhere.  You can get more charge and thus miles of range by getting a bigger, heavier battery, but that drives the cost of the vehicle up.  You don’t have to buy a bigger motor to get more range, if you purchase a smaller, lighter ICE vehicle at a lesser cost. 

The EPA rates highway vehicle range and puts the range number on the vehicle’s window sticker in the show rooms.   They do this for Electric vehicles (EV) and internal combustion (ICE –gasoline and diesel) vehicles. The range provided by the EPA for EVs is almost always an overstatement according to Car and Driver. Car and Driver EV range tests are conducted at a steady 75 miles per hour (MPH). They do this “because highway driving is where range most matters”.  By contrast, ICE vehicles almost always beat the EPA ratings in the 75 MPH tests. This is because the ICE vehicles have transmission gears whereas only a few EV models have transmission gearing.  The EV motors must increase revolutions where the motors are less efficient.

There are other factors that affect range. One of which is temperature.  In cold weather, ICE vehicles heat the cabin using the waste heat that comes from combustion of the gasoline. In the summer, ICE engine heat is dissipated by the radiator. The EVs use a resistive heater that consumes a lot of battery power. 

The South Dakota Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plan (SDEVIDP) referenced several tests relative to use of heaters in the cold weather and air conditioning in the hot weather.

 According to field testing performed by the Norwegian Auto Federation, operation on a standardized test course in temperatures ranging 21° F to 37° F reduced EV range by approximately 20% and they also lengthened charging times in cold temperatures. A similar result was observed in dynamometer testing by the American Automobile Association that indicated that without internal vehicle heating, EV battery range dropped by 12% at 20° F, but with the heater in operation, it dropped roughly 41%. Consistent with other studies, at 95° F, EV battery range dropped by 4% without air conditioning and by 17% with air conditioning in operation.

The Idaho National Laboratory conducted a study of EV charging under a broad range of temperature conditions over a nearly two-year period, using data collected from a taxi fleet operating in New York City. The study determined that the time to reach 80% state of charge (SOC) doubled or tripled at temperatures below 32° F.

There is another factor that limits range.  The manufacturers of the EV batteries recommend that you always keep the charge between 20% to 80%.  Not 0% to 100%.  So good management of the battery’s life limits the range to just 60%. More on this during the discussion of battery charging.

Summary

The EV range is usually overstated by the EPA.  To increase range, you would need a bigger battery and that is costly. Temperature, cold or warm, reduce the battery charge.  On a cold day, for example, by as much as 40%  if you use the cabin heater on a cold day.  To extend the battery’s life, it should not drop below 20% or exceed 80%.  You will have to recharge it more often to prevent it from going below 20%,

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Personal Automobiles, Uncategorized, US Auto Manufacturers

Its The EV Battery, Stupid!

Posted on November 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

The title is paraphrasing the Ragin Cajun, political adviser to the Clintons, James Carville. Carville said when asked about the biggest issue in an upcoming election, “it’s the economy, stupid” I contend that the biggest issue for the electric vehicle (EV) is the battery.

The battery represents the proposed transition from gasoline and diesel fuel to electricity.  The transition will not be easy, if at all.  Usually, major transitions have occurred because some new thing is better than the existing thing.  That is not happening here.  The EV is more costly, is less flexible, not as capable and is planned to be charged from an electrical grid that is sourced from wind turbines and solar cells.  The latter, the so-called renewable energy, has not demonstrated that it is capable of keeping the grids supplying a reliable supply of electricity 24/7. Nowhere. Nada. see here But politicians keep throwing money at these schemes.  You must wonder why they would do that.  Well maybe not.

The EV sales are not displacing gasoline and diesel vehicles because they are better.  No.  It is replacing those fuel driven vehicles by Government fiat.  Governments are giving EVs huge subsidies, and enacting regulatory systems making gasoline and diesel vehicles attain goals that are not reachable nor necessary.  Six states have legislated that no gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle can be manufactured or sold after 2030 to 2035. And the Feds are considering that too.

The WSJ blog posted Car Dealers to Biden: EV’s Are Not Selling reporting that 3900 US car dealerships wrote a letter to President Biden saying his EV sales mandate is not working. They told him that:

“Dealers have a 103-day supply of EVs compared to 56 days for all cars. It takes them on average 65 days to sell an EV, about twice as long as for gas-powered cars. EV sales are slowing though manufacturers have slashed prices and increased discounts.

But most consumers aren’t “ready to make the change,” in part because EVs are still too expensive. Many apartment renters also don’t have garages for home charging, and public charging networks are spotty with one in four not functional, according to one study.

“Customers are also concerned about the loss of driving range in cold or hot weather,” the auto dealers say. “Some have long daily commutes and don’t have the extra time to charge the battery.

The dealers want the Administration to “tap the brakes” on its proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively mandate that EVs comprise two-thirds of car sales by 2032

The dealers’ letter is an important political signal that progressive climate coercion isn’t as popular as Democrats think. Americans don’t like to be told what to do or what they must buy. As the dealers put it, “many people just want to make their own choice about what vehicle is right for them.” Imagine that.



The liabilities that are built in the EV battery are, to name a few:

  • The Range—how many miles can a charged battery propel a vehicle?
  • How long does it take to charge the battery?
  • What is the life of the battery?
  • How much is the cost of a replacement battery?
  • How safe are these batteries?
  • Will insurance rates be hiked up?
  • If most the materials needed to make a battery are suppled from
    China, is that worrisome?
  • Battery recycling?
  • Major electrical  revisions to supply @ home charging?
  • New fees replacing gasoline tax such as miles driven tax or a tax for charger use.
  • Government overreach?

The future postings will address these liabilities.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Government Regulations, government subsidies, Personal Automobiles, President Biden, Uncategorized, US Auto Manufacturers

Most of future Electrical Productiion will not be from Wind and Solar, So EVs will be powered by fossil fuels

Posted on September 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

 Economically developed Nations around the world are pushing the idea that the global temperature is rising unabated to a point where it will become an existential threat to mankind. The problem, they say, is carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the use of fossil fuels.  They think that CO2 emissions created by the use of gasoline, and diesel, along with natural gas and coal must be discontinued.  I think that these Nations are planning to subjugate you under the guise of saying they are just following “science”.

A part of their plan is to accomplish this by using electricity produced from renewable energy sources—Wind Turbines and Solar Cells— and make people buy electric vehicles (EV). This plan will not work.  But it will spend trillions of dollars before it is revealed as a failure.  Their plan will not be accomplished because wind and solar are not dispatchable.  Meaning, the Electric grids must provide, unfailingly, power 24/7.  This is accomplished by the use of fossil fuel power that can be ramped up and down to meet requirements. The renewables are not dispatchable because grid operators cannot ramp them up and down.  No wind, no sun, no renewable power. As they are today, EVs will continue to run on electricity made mostly by the combustion of fossil fuels.

Nevertheless, the government will try to force you into buying an electric vehicle (EV).

The EPA announced the new standards require a 49 mpg fleetwide average by 2026, a 33% increase over model year 2021 standards. The EPA said that these tough new tailpipe emission standards are designed to effectively force the auto industry to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars

The target cars are those powered by Internal Combustion Engines—  aka ICE.

And then they are enacting laws that no gasoline or diesel car can be manufactured and sold after some certain date.

California, always the leader in penalizing the people living in that state, has a  new law that it will be illegal to sell  new gasoline-powered cars after 2035.  Nothing from the Biden Administration yet but they are playing with a date to match California.

 Washington Free Beacon carries this story:

“All CARS ARE BAD” Pete Buttigieg’s Equity Advisers Want You To Stop Driiving

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is appointing a group of “leading experts” to advise him on “transportation equity,” including several who argue that cars cause climate change and promote racism and therefore should be phased out. 

And wouldn’t you know it, they make this issue, “racism”

So the Government is going to phase out all ICEs.   Let’s see how that will work.

Hedges and Company say” Need to know how many cars there are on Earth in 2023? Here is how many cars there are in the world, including trucks, broken down by world region?

1). Asia: 543 million vehicles on the road
2). Europe: 413 million vehicles (288 million in EU plus 125 million in non-EU countries)1
3). North America: 358 million vehicles
4). South America: 84 million vehicles
5). Middle East: 50 million vehicles
6). Africa: 26 million vehicles
7). Antarctica: about 50 vehicles

That totals up to about 1.5Billion.

Basically only the North American and EU are making rules to get rid of gasoline and diesel vehicles. North American and EU vehicles are less than half of the world’s vehicles.

My guess is that the developing nations will not ban ICE vehicles as they will not have much available electricity to power EVs.

How effective will that be?

What does the vehicle situation in the US look like? 

Statistica says:  In the first quarter of 2023, there were around 286 million vehicles operating on roads throughout the United States. 

From a Heartland posting we learn the following:

Historically, internal combustion engine (ICE) car sales in America are upwards of 55 million annually with about 15 million or 27 percent being new and 40 million or 73 percent being used car sales.

With a total of 50 to 55 million ICE vehicles being sold annually for new and used, it’s obvious that the auto industry and the economy has been benefiting and prospering in the used ICE car market.

The average life of an American vehicle is 13 years. For example, the California rule that no new ICE vehicle can be sold after 2035, would be mostly ineffective in that for years there will be grandfathered ICE vehicles on the road. Of course, California  might get really draconian and try to make ICEs illegal own and drive.

The next blog will examine the new and used EV market.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in Alternative Energy, CAFE Standards, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Electricity from Coal, EPA, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, President Biden, Renewable Energy

If 2035 Car Sales are 100% EV, 83% of All Cars on the Road Will Still be Gasoline or Diesel Fueled.

Posted on February 24, 2023 | 3 comments

President Biden has called for 50% of all new car and light truck sales be Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) by 2030. Even more draconian laws from States like California say:

“…….. all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be free of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide”. 

That means no gasoline vehicle sales can be made in California after 2035.

What is the outcome of these proposals that only allow ZEV to be made? The Fuels Institute, a proponent of the man-made global warming, posted “Reducing carbon emissions effectively-now and tomorrow” has the answer.   The charts premise is that of California’s pathway, meaning 100% of new car sales are ZEVs and no new fossil fuel powered cars can be sold.

“As the chart shows, in a hypothetical scenario in which all U.S. light duty vehicle sales are required to be ZEV in 2035, the market would likely only convert 16.5% of vehicles in operation to ZEV by that time. This would leave 83.5% of vehicles in 2035 still operating primarily on liquid fuels used in combustion engines with a potential life expectancy of longer than 20 years. This means that BEVs and a cleaner electricity grid will not be able to significantly cut transportation-related CO2e emissions for many years to come, resulting in increased atmospheric concentrations that will linger for another 100-plus years

It might be possible for the manufacturers to make enough ZEVs, but it may not make any difference if the manufacturers can. The cost, the range anxiety, the charging time, fires, etc. have turned off the common man buying ZEVs so far.

cbdakota

3 Comments

Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, CO2, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, President Biden

Part 2: The Fragile Electric Grid

Posted on August 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

See the source image

This is part two of Robert Bryce’s testimony to the House Select Committee on The Climate Crisis.

Our electric grid is fragile.  Robert Bryce writes that the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergence Response illustrates the declining reliability of our grid.  Bryce says:

“In 2002, there were 23 “major disturbances and unusual occurrences” on the domestic electric grid. Those outages were caused by things like ice storms, fires, vandalism, and severe weather. By 2016, the number of disturbances and unusual occurrences had increased six-fold to 141. In 2020, the number of events jumped to 383 – an increase of 270% in just four years.  Even more alarming: through the first two months of 2021, there have been 122 of these outages.”

Bryce says:

“Electrifying everything is the opposite of anti-fragile.  Attempting to halt the use of liquid motor fuels and replace them with electricity will make our transportation system more vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, saboteurs, equipment failure, accidents, or human error. Electrifying our transportation system will reduce societal resilience because it will put all our energy eggs in one basket. Electrifying transportation will reduce fuel diversity and concentrate our energy risks on a single grid, the electric grid, which will make it an even-more-appealing target for terrorists or bad actors.

Furthermore, and perhaps most important, attempting to electrify transportation makes little sense given the ongoing fragilization of our electric grid. The closures of our nuclear plants is reducing the reliability and resilience of the electric grid and making it more reliant on gasfired power plants and weather-dependent renewables.”

While skeptics have known for years that the alarmist’s forecasts of doom are not likely to be realized, the alarmists oddly want to shut down all nuke plants. Nuke plants that do not emit their enemy carbon dioxide (CO2).  Bryce notes Congress inaction regarding this issue when he says:

“Instead, Congress is standing idly by as our nuclear plants – our most reliable, safest, and most power-dense form of electricity production – are being shuttered. Nuclear plants are, as writer Emmet Penney recently put it, our “industrial cathedrals.” If policymakers want to decarbonize our transportation system while enhancing the resilience of our society, the best option would be to have a grid that is heavily reliant on nuclear energy.”

Bryce discusses recent issues that demonstrate the gird’s declining reliability in his report.  They can be reviewed by clicking here.

See part two about supply chains and mineral needs.

Pages: 1 2

Leave a comment

Posted in Alternative Energy, Chinese aggression, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Electricity from Coal, Nuclear Energy, Personal Automobiles, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

Can Tesla Survive The Loss Of Subsidies?

Posted on September 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Three years ago, The Los Angeles Times posted “Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies”. I have not seen a summary of the current total of Musk’s subsidies but it is certainly more than $4.9 billion now. When The LA Times speaks about an “empire” it included Tesla, Space X and Solar City—all Musk controlled businesses.

This discussion will focus on the Tesla electric vehicle (EV) business.

Subsidies start with the Federal Tax Credit of $7,500 given to each buyer of a Tesla EV.  (Every EV maker gets the same treatment.).  California also provides a $2500 subsidy per car.

The following is from the LA Times posting:

“Tesla has also collected more than $517 million from competing automakers by selling environmental credits.  The regulation was developed in California and has been adopted by nine other states.”

These regulations require that companies selling automobiles must also sell a certain percentage of EVs.  Sales of an EV gives the seller environmental credits.   Manufacturers are penalized for not selling enough EVs and must buy credits to offset their failure. Because Tesla sells only EVs it gets a lot of credits which they sell to the other car makers.

The following 2016 video discusses what the Wall Street Journal thinks subsidies mean to the Tesla’s bottom line: (Please excuse the 15 second commercial.  When video ends click back to this page.)

https://video-api.wsj.com/api-video/player/v3/iframe.html?guid=00E58A9F-9315-47FE-BFED-7C79B2C3A98B&shareDomain=null

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, China, Climate Alarmism, Electric Vehicles, Electricity from Coal, Government Revenues, government subsidies, Personal Automobiles, President Trump, radical environmentalists, US Auto Manufacturers

Why Did ExxonMobil Lobby To Stay In The Paris Agreement?

Posted on June 4, 2017 | 1 comment

ExxonMobil lobbied President Trump to stay in the Paris Agreement. Can you figure out why that company would wish to do so?

Here are some pickings from the most recent ExxonMobil global energy forecast:

·         Total energy demand by 2040 will be 25% higher than in 2015.

·         Global energy supply in 2040 will be 55% from oil and natural gas. Wind, solar and biofuels will supply only 4% in 2040.

·         Coal use will decline but will still be the third largest supplier of global energy.

·         Global electrical energy demand for transportation will only be 2% of the total global energy demand in 2040.

·         Wind and solar electricity supplies will approach 15% of total electrical energy supply by 2040

·         Although utilization improves over time, intermittency limits worldwide wind and solar capacity utilization to 30% and 20% respectively.

·         By 2040 US and Europe combined CO2 emissions will be about 8 billion tonnes.  The total global emissions in 2040 will be about 36 billion tonnes,

·         Electric cars are a very high-cost option, at about $700/tonne of CO2 avoided.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in AGW, CO2, Coal, Domestic Energy, Electricity, Electricity from Coal, fossil fuels, Nuclear Energy, Paris Agreement, Personal Automobiles, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower