@@johnwolf3294 TH-cam isn't very fond of people posting links in the comments, but you can probably google it and find the relevant info. In general, the average commute in the US is relatively comparable to the average commute in Norway.
@@johnwolf3294 I live in Norway, but in order to find an answer for you, I'd have to google it myself. You'd have to find a Norwegian statistician who's looked speficially at these data, if you don't want to go via Google or some other search engine. I remember seeing numbers for the average commute in the US, though, and they really weren't very different from the commutes lots of people do here. Perfectly within the capabilities of all but the shortest range EVs today.
Yes it is and also it has only 5000000 people and a lot of hidro power. Try to extrapolate that to 9 billion people. And still only 24% of the cars from Norway ar electric.
Just because the energy requirement of refining is stated in kWh doesn't mean that the process uses electricity. In some places (like the UK), I understand it does, but here in the US, the distillers are heated by just burning some of the feedstock. That refining cost isn't relevant to 'can the grid cope with EVs?' questions. One often-neglected cost that IS relevant, though, is the cost of pumping crude oil up out of the ground; the pump-jacks ARE run by electric motors. It's hard to estimate how much a reduction in gasoline demand would reduce total pumping costs, though.
@@levenkay4468 The EIA website gives vast amounts of data on what is necessary to refine oil into gasoline and it is a significant amount. I haven't lately broken it down into what the amount of kWh is used to compare with the export of gasoline but it is somewhere close to 5 kWh of electricity for each gallon of gasoline. The other "feedstocks" are significant amounts of natural gas. The EIA website is a fantastic source of information though it can be difficult to find the specific data you are after in the vast wealth of data.
@@levenkay4468 while *some* of the electricity required for petroleum refinement is generated in-house (local to the refinery), most is pumped in by the local utility. In addition, the feedstock you mention could be used to generate electricity for the grid instead of going into gasoline. While it's not 1:1 a net electricity offset, and certainly not an effect on a national scale, there is a significant reduction in energy drawn from the grid for petroleum refining.
@@levenkay4468 doing even more damage to the environment. What do we use when it runs out? What will people do as prices continue to rise due to scarcity? I's rather have something that can be powered by several sources than just one.
@@Trashed20659 I certainly don't favor consuming resources a million times faster than they were produced. I just think it isn't helpful to use mistaken talking points.
@@mk1st even one of my buddies who is a gear head wanted to buy an EV after having my Tesla for a month. He ended up getting a plug in hybrid because of “range anxiety” even though he only drives about 30mi/day and charges at home. Whatever!
@mikeshafer using all the hybrids battery 100% to 0% all the time will stress out that tiny battery. He's gonna lose a lot more electric capacity, and will need a new battery sooner. It's heavier, so it's far less efficient. Plus, he still has to do tons of ICE expensive maintenance. Hybrids require more specialized techs... he won't have all that extra storage and surplus power...u gotta open his eyes as to why ALL electric is the only way! Lol
@@mig6220 I tried but for some reason the conservative narrative it pushing hybrids now - my guess is because the oil companies can still profit from them!
On a previous Stossil video, Mills claimed that covering the entire country (4 million sq miles) with solar panels would only meet half the electricity demand. More informed estimates claim 22000 sq miles gives us 100%. Mills only has an undergrad degree in physics, and an actual physicist would know better.
am not arguing in his favour, however there is a lot of variance in how much power is lost through transmission from generation to end use. There could be significant variance in different analysis on this
@@sickbailey21 Combined transmission/distribution/inverter efficiency is about 90%. So, 1000 watts of power from a solar panel ends up as about 900 watts of usable power. Mills claim would require an efficiency of less than 0.3%, i.e. a panel producing 1000 watts would result in less than 3 watts of usable power.
@@bpbr101 you made no reference to transmission here though. If I have to transport this energy 1 mile or 3000 miles to its end point, the losses will be completely different for the comparisons. This is the point I was making. Solar is very efficient but transporting that energy is another thing. This is the same reason why we haven't just put huge solar farms in the deserts to power the globe
Not only that, but he is forgetting about other sources, like wind and wave, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear energy. The sun sends the earth more energy than has ever been spent in fossil fuels lifetime in a couple of days. And people insist we can't possibly find a way to tap into it? THAT seems like the ridiculous argument.
Yeah, there are alot of strawman or false equivalency videos. The problem is that they assume we fully transition to _one_ technology - which is nonsense.
Great video. The misinformation out there is astounding... I am a pwr systems expert and have an EV so understand all the Technical issues. The big lie is that the grid cant handle EVs... for consumer EVs its mostly charging at home overnight when there is ample capacity. This actually helps the transformers and all the oil filled apparatuur since the load become more steady. A steady load reduced the heating/cooking and pressure stresses on elec apparatus... also, battery tech is and will continue improve. This is allowing all the extra capacity from renewables to be stored for the overnight loads etc...
I recall a recent study showing that overnight EV charging was also helping utilities economically, by giving income for otherwise underused overnight capacity in the grid and generation.
Most cars don't need more than a few KWh per charge, anyway. Nay sayers want you to think the grid has to handle a full charge from every car every night. Also, in a city in Calif., they are upgrading the school bus fleet to EVs, and those will be able to put power back into the grid in emergency situations, and my own EV can run my refrigerator in a power outage... already did it once.
Ample for how many? In the UK it's known that big football matches strain the grid, as so many put the kettle on at half time. But millions of EVs charging is fine?
@@bigglyguy8429 The US power grid is over taxed and decades behind in upgrades. Also what about winter time just this past winter EVs were littered about because it was to cold to charge so they lay abandoned waiting for warmer weather.
He’s still a great reporter. Reporting on a lot of great topics that the main stream media just completely miss. He’s just always missed on this subject.
Every single new house should be required to have solar on the roof. In California this is the case, but it’s such a shame that in Nevada it’s not required and we have so much sunshine!
Agreed, and compared to the cost of the house it's a fairly small cost. I'm in Eugene, Oregon, and we installed Solar panels last year. We're not the first but we're clearly still early adopters, and many houses don't have roofs that are well aligned for solar panels. We were lucky that our house had large SW and West facing roof areas, so we got 23 panels up, and covered our Net electric needs for the year, but even half a dozen panels on each house would make a big difference.
I’m ok with solar but you aren’t putting that crap on my roof just for it to leak and it will they always do. I’ll put it on my lawn where it makes more sense and is easier to work on
@@mikeshafer We have a max 10.5 kW generation, in practice that maxes at about 9.5 kW, and about 75 kWh on the best Summer days. We also have about 10 kWh battery storage (in our garage). The battery was so we're covered in case of power cuts, which we've had a few times in the past years, so we can run essential loads without the mains. That's everything in the house except the big load items like the washer, dryer and stove. We have two chest freezers in the garage that would run off the battery if necessary. I see solar panels getting more efficient and cheaper over time, so when these need replacing (in 20-25 years), the replacements will likely generate even more power. Downside is the cost; because electricity is so cheap here we're looking at a 10-15 year payoff period for the initial investment.
When I moved in none of my neighbor's had electric cars and two of my friends had electric cars. Today three of my neighbors have electric cars and two of my friends have electric cars. One owns a hybrid. My current car is a gasoline vehicle and it's very likely my next car will be an electric.
@@Nordic_Mechanic NO. It is not a niche. In China thery surpassed the 50% of ev in sales last month. Eventualy that will hapen to all countries. A lot of legacy automakers can not sell cars in China for lack of reasonably priced ev.
@5:28 You know what’s funny about this one? This is clearly a choice, and it’s more about greed than anything else. Los Angeles has more homes than anywhere else in CA. It also has more electric cars in total and more EVs purchased/added to the LA grid each year. But LA has something that San Diego, San Francisco, and the other large population centers do not have: a publicly owned, publicly-run, non-profit electric utility. Because of this, Los Angeles was not part of the request to charge EVs at night last summer (which was what the governor actually said). Also, it has never had a rolling blackout, never had planned brownouts, never had curtailment and never had a multi-billion dollar fire caused by an unwillingness to do normal maintenance required to prevent it because some CEO wants to raise the stock price. Angelenos are also ENCOURAGED to add rooftop solar to their homes, and not affected by NEM 3.0 because, again, the utility doesn’t need to make a profit. Perhaps the difficulty with switching to renewals isn’t a physics or even monetary one, but rather a problem with the profit-motive being the driver of things that we just need to do for the good of us all. ***Also, California’s mandate is a goal-posts, you’re right, but it certainly doesn’t specify BEV only. It also includes Hydrogen, plugin hybrids and any other “partial-zero-emission” technology someone wants to come up with.
H2 is only a dream. Follow this: H2 about 2.5X more expensive than gasoline, gasoline being 4X more expensive than gasoline. H2 is 10X more expensive than charging a car.
California is a special case, the energy demand is more an issue than the supply. 17 oil refineries and loads of Fraking drawing electricity. It's no wonder supply can't keep up with demand.
True, we know we can change systems and create them. At some point there have been no fueling stations and now there are millions. We can build EV Charger at even more spots. We just have to keep working on it. :)
Yeah, we are at the point where we are being told that further efforts at human progress just aren't cost effective, as conservatives always do. Luckily people like Stossel and Mills are usually eventually swept into the dustbin of history.
@@byGDur Do you understand that suburbia would need approx 20 times the car space parking for Batt charging as opposed to Fossil. You simply cannot replace a Gas station with the equivalent in Elec because "where does the land come from?". That is why Charging Stations are away from the normal shops and places people want to be. Also a driver needs to recharge about 3 times more often compared to petrol refilling. Only the enthusiasts with a driveway with a charger on their property enjoy this solution - a small %. You said "we just have to keep working on it" - really, how many decades, compact Li battery tech has been around over 30 years and has hardly improved. As the guy says, for the same amount of energy, you need 50 times the mass. The best I would say is, EVs are solution for the few and they are yet to hit with realistic Insurance and road taxes. If Elec keeps going up - end of EVs.
@howardholt3530 I'm not sure if your comment is solcasm. It takes roughly 5kw's of electricity to extract, transport, and produce 1 litre of useable fuel. (gasoline)
True. I am a retired chemical engineer and worked at oil refiney, and gasolinre (petrochemical complex) that used a cut from the oil refinery to reform it into gasoline. Both facilities had dedicated power platnts withing 1 mile of distance.
That gets me head scratching is that they say our infrastructure is not good enough, but the same person that's using that excuse don't want to improve our infrastructure.
Why is there so much resistance to change? The valley of despair is a real and many can’t seem to get out of it. The rationalization for fossil fuel is laughably irrational.
Because EVs are not at parity with ICE in terms of recharge speed or price in the US yet. Manufacturers in US are not willing to put investments towards making a competitive product and politicians keeping Chinese EVs out of the market is the only way to keep US ICE auto makers alive.
Big Oil (aka Big Money) pays huge amounts of money for advertising against EVs which some how make its way down to social media comments (paid shills) infusing a public resistance to change.
Two reasons. 1st People are fearful about what they don’t understand. 2nd Oil is big money business and they are spending lots of money pushing out propaganda so they don’t become irrelevant
Human beings as proven in sociological studies are more prone to act on perceived losses than promised gains. If an EV won't go 400 miles on a charge that took 5 minutes, which is the experience of ICE drivers, there is a perceived loss. The fact that 98% of most driving is less than 100 miles a day doesn't register. A perceived gain would be that you can charge at home, negating the trip to a gas station, and will save over 50% in fuel costs, along with less service needs, registers less than the loss does for some folks.
@@Trashed20659 Yeah, I suspect that most people don't understand that I spend less time refueling than they do. I plug in when I get home, and unplug when I leave. On road trips, I plug in, and walk away. I get a sandwich, and usually have to rush back by the time I've gotten my sandwich and eaten it, and taken a bathroom break. Having watched a family of five spend 15 minutes at a gas station, between turns in the bathroom and buying snacks, I'm sceptical on people's increased speed, at least for families, plus the inconvenience of someone having to hold a gas pump handle, then move the car. But I'm also used to the way I saw in Europe, of people stopping after two hours driving for a break, not to refuel, just to take a break. It's a more relaxing way, which pairs nicely with the more pleasant driving of an EV. And EV camping is convenient and comfortable, just stretch out in back with the car keeping a nice temperature all night.
A lot of the people that knock EV's either are connected to petroleum companies in some way or are stuck in the past and don't want to change which is really too bad because it's going to hurt the rest of us that do want to change and make things better for all of us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As someone who doesn't support the mandate or tax credits for Evs I dont see Evs as the future we have electric vehicles that are over 100 years old. Electric vehicles are only useful in densely populated areas. They do not save you money they do not have a resale value and limiting yourself to one fuel source is unwise. Many many more reasons that an EV is a poor purchase decision but I dont want to write a story in the comments section. Also you cannot freely travel with an EV and when the run out of charge while traveling you need a tow truck not a two gallon gas can.
It took me 1 day (installation time) to have Tesla switch me to 100% renewable with solar panels and powerwalls, in fact I have a 10% surplus that is exported. So not only have I been basically removed our demand from the grid part of someone else's demand is removed. Many more householders are doing the same thing and the State of California is adding massive battery storage system to take the excess solar/wind generation to be used when needed. Changing to renewables is no longer just a way to help the environment it is a long term economic positive.
The battery storage is a requirement now in CA. because with so much power being dumped on the grid all day, much was wasted. With batteries, you truly get to use your own solar power, and Edison owes you little,
The big immediate win for electric urban transportation is the enormous reduction in particle emissions. Recent studies show 24 hours of just being in Rotterdam equals smoking 7 cigarettes a day. We still need get better at making clean electricity, but that's another can of worms.
@@whatahowl1 Did you miss the part I said about we need to learn more about clean electrification? ..oh, and please read up on battery tech, in the Netherlands we power a stadium for a full soccer match using 'discarded' car batteries (charged by solar), they're still fine for other uses before they need to become landfill.
@@dimitri877 by the time they become truly dead, I bet someone would figure out a way to economically recycle the dead batteries. No need to throw them in landfills
@@whatahowl1 Batteries last a very long time, a 100kwh battery, with 200kwh/kg energy density would provide a good 300 or more miles to a full charge worst case scenario. This is poor by modern energy density standards, but worst case, then that battery will worst case handle 2000 charge cycles before it loses 20% of it's range. If the battery died at that point it will have provided 600,000 miles of driving range, but it wouldn't be dead or useless at this point. Once the batteries are realistically useless from a vehicle powering perspective, they can still be used for static storage, after that they become a useful resource for materials, to be recycled for the next generation of batteries. They are valuable and will have a whole new industry created around recycling and we will no longer need to pull resources from the Earth. Same is true of old Solar panels and wind turbines. You're essentially creating an issue which has already been solved to fear monger against the solution to mankind's energy needs.
@@dimitri877 They won't go into landfill, we already know how to recycle any battery, while recovering 95% of the whole pack to reuse it's resources to make new batteries, which likely require less lithium to produce more energy storage.
I love your videos, mostly the fact that you are speaking the truth. Combating skeptics, government, the fossil fuel industry, legacy auto, and just general low-information people.
One thing that truly needs to be addressed in California is carbon emissions from fires caused by poorly maintained power lines. The safety and reliability of the grid itself needs to be a cornerstone of the shift to electrification.
Leapfrogging is already happening in places like Thailand and India. But not necessarily with cars, but with things like electric bikes and Tuk Tuks. It's still about displacing fossil fuels though and the convenience of electricity (and the ability to generate your own fuel in those rural areas.) It's really about the democratization of energy. People who were previously beholden to fuel companies and the refining process, can now throw up a couple of solar panels and fuel their own transportation.
I notice how they also always gloss over the damage drilling, transporting, storing, refining, transporting, and storing again oil does to the environment. Not just the carbon in the atmosphere but oil spills, toxic chemicals in drinking water, etc. While they love to bring up the problem with cobalt and the likelihood a portion of it is mined by children and slaves they never talk about the black market that exists in Africa for oil and gas. They act as if the solution is not perfect there is no sense in trying it. I will take an imperfect solution that at least starts the process of be greener than doing nothing until that so-called perfect system is invented.
Don't forget the extra costs in terms of health in people having breathing problems in cities with lots of vehicular traffic. And the extra cost to US taxpayers in the form of the US military being deployed and stationed overseas in regional hotspots to keep that oil flowing relatively smoothly. I don't see OPEC or Big Oil footing those bills, so it's extra costs we have to bear to use gas. Usually EV critics can't refute those things, so they resort to saying "fake news" or childish insults.
Your complaint about oil apply to EVs in fact EVs use highly toxic and radioactive metals mined primarily with slave labor in China. A study released shows that EVs require so much energy to be produced that you have to drive an EV over 100,000 miles to brake even with the carbon foot print of an ICE vehicle.
@@brucegillingham2793 Ben talked about this in one if his previous debunking videos. Yes, EVs have a slightly higher emissions cost when the battery is being produced. But after they're made, EV's are only as dirty as their power source. And the cleaner their power source, the less emissions they have, whereas a gas car will always pollute no matter where or how its gas was created. Plus when a battery is no longer considered usable in an EV, it can still be used as a backup power system for buildings. Or more likely it can be recycled where a lot of the minerals can be reclaimed and reused in new batteries, lessening the demand for new raw materials as more EV's are taken off the road due to age and accidents.
Do these people, and the people who pay them, really think it's better to pad their bank accounts than not constantly pump noxious gasses into our environment? Where do they think these noxious gasses and assorted effluvia go, even without the scientific evidence that is readily available? And speaking of the grid, where did it come from in the first place?
A lot of Rich people do not care about what their businesses do to mankind or the planet. Greed has that power. If they had to cover the costs of the damage caused by their products, they would get out of the business immediately. It is only because society has subsidized the true cost of using fossil fuels that it is profitable.
At one time there were no gas stations in the country. Just imagine if there were idiots back then. We wouldn't have any cars today. That's the beauty of free market. If there's a need, someone will fill that need.
And new technology always replaces the old in a period from 10 to 14 years., achieving 50% in ujust 5 to 7 years. So by 2028 it will be over since ICE cars will become more expensive as they lost the economy of mass production, while the ev dues to improvement in technology will decrease in price. Price of the gasoline will also increase a gas stations increase the price in orther to compensate for the loss volume on sales. Latewr some gas stations will close, and the trip to the gas stations will become larger. Compare to charging while one is sleeping, and having full power every morning.
@@EnriqueAThieleSolivan Swing and a miss. EV production is down globally EVs have been around over a century so your 10-14 year estimate is non applicable. IF it wasnt for tax credits, and other government controls EVs would not be on the market at all. Tesla only exists only because we taxpayers "helped" EV buyers make their purchase. They same policy that made Tesla possible made golf carts ubiquitous in the US because they are considered the same type of vehicle as an Tesla.
No one ever seems to mention the fact that we're going to run out of oil at some point. I created the oil depletion allowance for a reason way back then they knew it would run out one day. And as supplies dwindle the price is going to go up as it goes down. It's already getting unaffordable.
Ha! I remember back in the 90s they tried convincing all us students that we had to go electric because we were running out of fossil fuels by 2022 or something silly like that. We have more oil availible now then back then.
These men were hired by the oil industry to put out arguments saying that EVs are bad. It is like tobacco industry lawyers arguing that smoking doesn't cause cancer. As with many internet counterpoints, they have some small true points, but they exaggerate the problems and ignore working solutions. The electrical grid growth will continue to expand, simply because there are profits to be made. There were steadily increases in electricity demand for decades as air conditioners were added to vehicles, homes, and businesses. But over the years electrical generation increased to meet those demands. And in places like California, a good percentage of that growing generation was using renewable resources, and almost zero coal. The ecological mess that we are trying to fix today came from NOT adapting and innovating, and doing things the same way that our forefathers did. We need to make smarter choices, moving forward.
Were still waiting on all the other previous EV claims to come true. Let me know when the batteries are reliably hitting there service life estimates. Now excuse me I have to go warranty three of my lithium tool batteries that are less then two years old and dont charge any longer.
@@brucegillingham2793I got a neighbour who compared his electric scooter battery to a Tesla car battery, to him it’s the same kinda battery. That’s it! Should we laugh with him or cry for him?
2:20 - Yes and afaik, this specific and important calculation, was one of the first steps which led to the creation of Tesla which was founded 2003. So at least 20 year we have this knowledge.
But Canute did it to show his followers that he wasn't power incarnate by demonstrating that in fact the tide wouldn't stop coming in. These guys are the opposite. They truly think that they can stop the tide. I see that even the Amish are starting to adopt EVs....
High desert Californian here . I can tell you the grid reliability and capacity is so much better than last and previous years . Just a few alerts and it was a scorcher this summer . Now completed solar projects usually can't come in line immediately . They can take as long as 5 years because you may have to increase grid capacity to handle the higher load . It is weird it's done this way . Panels sitting out in the sun deteriorate even when not in operation
Thanks for another excellent episode. The best weapon against FUD is knowledge. I just talked to one of my uncles, and he said he wouldn't drive an EV cause it takes too long to charge. When I mentioned my Tesla MY takes 20 min to charge, he wouldn't believe it.
Most “studies” also seem to ignore the extremely variable cost of delivery of energy from its original source. The cost of hauling liquid fuel to, say, the Australian outback, or any point of use that is distant from the point of production is very significant. However, electricity is distributed by infrastructure that already exists for other purposes, and more-and-more is being generated locally, particularly solar generation. Many EVs are running on energy that is delivered from the very roof under which they are parked; a trend that will only increase.
Currently, there is plenty of grid energy available for moving all transportation to electricity. In fact, EVs can lower electric rates by increasing the load factor of existing thermal plants. It's simply a matter of rate schedules to incentivize offpeak charging. Data centers are an entirely different matter.
In Toronto area we have a new time of use rate plan since last December... 2.8c per KW/hour! For overnight. So now I am spending 8 dollars per month to drive it around versus 18!!
Speaking about just cars, I do not believe we should dictate the type of vehicle people own. I personally own a Tesla, but I am not going to tell my neighbor that he must own an EV too. I think we should have EVs, Hybrids, and ICE vehicles. They each have their own use cases.
One thing you missed is that as the grid becomes cleaner and provides cheaper power, the initial CO2 footprint of EVs and solar and wind power becomes lower, and cheeper.
1) does he count the energy lost in transporting oil from Saudi to refineries and then from there to gas stations? 2) You won't need the electricity to power gas stations, nor for the refineries.
From dr8ill to burned fuel inside the engine the efficiency is only 20% 80% of the original energy is used on shipping, refining, transportation, etc. When a resourse is limited why waste 80% of it?
Nobody seems to recognize that Refining requires an enormous of electricity and they suck that juice 24 by 7. Charging cars, buses, semi trucks will be done at night when many grids have excess energy.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for these guys to do a better follow up , I think Ben is being too polite and generous to these clearly payed for fossil fuel appologists
At this moment my reasoning is. if it can do 300km + on a charge and when required charge from 20 - 80% in less than an hour on a fast charger, I will be happy with an EV even though I do at least one trip in excess of 2000 km every 2 years. My only restraint is the cost of acquiring an EV. In my country there is no cheap used EV's.
These Luddites have been coming up with the same miss-information year after year. Meanwhile the public have been adopting electric cars and looking at other ways of getting around like bicycles and e-bikes. They've been installing solar panels, home storage batteries, solar thermal water heating, heat pumps and improving their insulation. Engineers all over the globe have been putting up wind turbines, building solar farms, installing tidal turbines and new battery storage. Research into improvements on all of the above is being carried out with great vigour and the rate of progress is exponential. The results of all of this effort is nothing short of astounding. There remains much to be done, but it is being done, and nobody engaged in the effort has any doubt that it will be done.
"We are 10 times better [at converting sunlight to energy] than the fastest-growing plant that has existed on Earth before humanity got here. We're doing pretty well." www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/solar-panel-efficiency/
"Energy per pound" of electricity is near infinity. An empty battery weighs as much as a full one, so no weight is added when charging the battery. This in contrast to gas, where an empty tank weighs much less than a full tank. It's only advantage is that the tank itself is so much lighter than a battery.
The next big game-changer for EV efficiency will be Aptera, an EV which uses about a third of the amount of energy per mile as a traditional EV, AND generates its own power from the sun, taking the grid inefficiency out of the equation for the first 30-40 miles of each day of driving.
I appreciate that 80% energy "waste" in a gas car in winter. All the mandates for EVs do is raise the price of gas cars so people end up buying enough EVs to meet the mandate. We should be ending subsidies on oil and all energy sources so free market can manage the appropriate mix.
The Fossil Fuel industry uses the more electricy than all other industries.. In North America, the Fossil Fuel industry uses 11% of all electricy generation ..
@@brucegillingham2793 38% and falling .. How much does the burning of fossil fuels cost everyone in health insurance? Answer , in the US , just under $400,000,000,000.00 .. $400 billion every year .. The carbon makes kids stewpid, your d1ck limp and takes your Gramma sooner than it should..
They are so worried about how much electricity is needed for EVs but totally indifferent to the electricity requirements of data centres, AI and crypto mining.
Ben I remember when I was a kid and read about a carburetor that was designed that could get enormous results in mpg. The government stepped in and took the device and forbid him from ever building another one. Same thing is happening. Those that love oil so much are the same ones that hate alternative methods of transportation other than oil usage vehicles
Ben, I really appreciate what you have been doing lately with the fact checking of others. Your data and videos provide me with information I can use to help others understand.
Poland gets most of its gas (natural gas as opposed to oil/petrol) from Russia. Following the invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia for their hostile act, many Poles were afraid that the Russian gas supplies would be interrupted, hence their rush to secure an alternative heating source.
California government did NOT say don't use your electric car they recommended against charging at peak time 4p-9p, which no one does because it's more expensive, this gets intentionally misreported frequently. Batteries time shift, you can charge when power is abundant and cheap, use it whenever
I remember when the term "multimedia" came into vogue during the '90's. With the release of such hardware as the Video Toaster (for the Amiga), it was said to be the beginning of the democratization of TV & video production content. As with most things, this has had some negative effects. Case in point: Stossel TV.
All of these videos debunking ev lies always fail to point out the part about how refining oil into a gallon of gas requires about 13.5kwh on average. A little napkin math shows that this is also about how much usable work an ICE engine extracts from a gallon of gas. Gas is simply a product that oil companies produce to hand over a packet of energy to consumers in liquid form. EVs cut out the middle man! Leave the oil in the ground and let the oil companies die already.. At the very least, use this to debunk the whole "grid can't handle it" argument because it already is in a sense.
EVs are great for renewable-fed grids because there is some recharge flexibility. Many EV owners can select charge times that correspond with peak renewable generation. This flattens the "duck curve" to reduce peak loads. Variable rate structures will incentivize this. Also, local solar panels can reduce the need for grid upgrades. I gave up on Stossel years ago.
So true 8:00 - I wonder 120 years ago people would have talked about the horseless carriage verses horse and cart. At 65 years old I thrive on the knowledge that the technology continues to change. It can be a rollercoaster ride but the rollercoaster is more exciting than the merry-go-round.
You said it yourself the deadline is the motivation. Not that it is better technology to replace our current transportation. So essentially force you to comply rather than free market decisions.
5:43 - It is an energy transition not a cliff. The grid is growing all the time. As we progress, the grid WILL cope! We actually have PLENTY of electricity. SO much that where I live electricity prices are ZERO in the middle of the day. I can get electricity for 0c/kW and the power company still makes money as the wholesale price of elecrtricity is negative.
Everyone ignores the fact that when ICV is taken off the road the electricity that is used to produce and deliver gas on average is 80% compared to EV so the real addition is only 20%. finally oil is burned and never reused which is continuously mined. The recycling of minerals will reach 95%. THUS IN THE END MINING WILL CONTINUE TO DECREASE SINCE WE ALREADY HAVE IT IN RECYCLING.
The battery storage he mentioned is relevant. We need to look at the lifecycle of EVs and that includes the generation, storage and transmission (like you mentioned). The graph showing that kinetic energy is converted 100% is not accurate because they skipped the storage losses and you can't really skip storage because that PV panel will be useless in the evening. Looks like they don't show the maximum capacity each type of power generation and how much it can generate over time. In my view, nuclear power generation is the best way of generating power at large scale with a high availability. You can use PV at home to address the overloading of the network or increase the voltage of the transmission and distribution of the network. Mining for materials will have an impact on the environment and that is just something we will have to work with.
According to the 'Data from US electricity generation...' graphic, coal and nuclear have roughly the same energy loss. What?! Also, a valid point is that even coal is more efficient than the average gasoline-powered vehicle. Even with existing electricity generation sources, EVs are more efficient than gasoline-powered vehicles.
I have owned an electric f150 for 2 years. Best decision I ever made. I don’t charge it every day at home cause I don’t need to, but if you got one, you’d be happy to and you’d be happy you threw away Your gas burning vehicle that is a waste of money and time filling up at the gas station the part of the change it’s the greatest thing ever
Ethiopia is going towards 100% renewable electricity and they are banning ICE vehicles. They have big hydroelectric dams, solar, wind and some geothermal. They don't have good fossil fuel resources. The government decided they are spending way too much on oil imports and their infrastructure is already underdeveloped as well. So it will be easier and cheaper for them to go electric.
omg and the other video has about 110K upvotes 💀 We really need to get better at sharing or at least upvoting "our" content from Ben and the Everything Electric Show, JustHaveAThink etc. Sometimes I see lots of comments but only 1 upvote. Upvotes are free to give out! "Our" channels have sometimes over 100k subscribers but only a few hundred upvotes. Let's try to improve this please - Rant over :D
Good Job Ben. I used to like John Stossel, but this is pure BS. For example, California's governor did not say "don't use your electric car." EV owners were asked to not charge until later in the evening, after the peak demand, IF they did not need to. This is something most EV owners do anyway, plug in when home for the night, with their car programmed to not charge until the "super off peak" rates start at 11-12 o'clock. Also, there is no need to "double the grid" when the entire fleet is electric. It is more like a 30% increase, not 100%. With 2035 ICE ban, it will take until 2055 before most of the fossil cars are scrapped.
I live in Louisville (an area not considered the best for solar power) and my daughter and I both charge our electric cars off them, as well as run the house. Solar is dependent on the season and the weather, but we produce enough in the summer that it makes enough credits for the winter. The whole thing saves us thousands of dollars a year and puts practically no pressure on the grid. In fact, it means that the grid doesn’t have to supply our previous needs. The Stossel video is so obviously wrong and bad that it seems to me that I can only think it is there to support the continued existence of the status quo.
I am very sure that Mr. Stossel and his fellow "Physicist" will happily buy an EV next time they buy new cars if it happens 3 years from now, just like 80-90% of all Americans will do at that time, and he will love it without a doubt Just like he has a smartphone, a huge flatpanel TV and is subscribing to a streaming service
Hmm, $100 trillion in mega packs to temporarily hold the power wind and solar (free). That might suggest why Teslas investment in mega packs is growing at an exponential pace and may out perform the auto industry. Hmm, sounds like one persons failure to see the opportunity is another persons massive profit.
Wish the US would invest in more Nuclear power. At night, because the plant is underutilized, they sell the power extremely cheap. Georgia Power for instance has a $.01/kW rate for charging your EV at night due to the abundance of extra nuclear power.
Existing nuclear power plants have already acquired special taxes to support them because they are more expensive than wind and solar. Private insurance companies will not reinsure nuclear construction costs or decommissioning costs. Any excesses in decommissioning costs are dumped on people who may not be born yet and who will never benefit directly from the power of the nuclear plant generates. Which is pretty immoral.
The traditional Nuclear Power plants are being replaced by solar energy farms. Al Nuclear energy power station take decades to be finished, they cost about 4X their estimated cost, and requires a lot of people to operate. Renewables on the contrary are made in am single year, low cost to bulit, low maintenance.. They will dissapear (they are closing plants, with no new construction) until Nuclear Fusion is available. Then as with all new technologies they have to compete with the renewables, that every year cost less to manufacture. FN Fuusion can be relegated to space travel if the reactors can be made samll enought.
You’re correct because 3rd world countries leap frogged straight to cellular instead of dedicated phone lines like 1st world countries did. As it was far more efficient and cheaper to implement than it would have been to develop a dying system for consumer usage.
Speaking of efficiency losses, I'm wondering if anyone calculated how much fuel is burned by the ships and trucks that transport oil to the refineries, and how much is burned by the trucks to transport the refined gas to the pumps.
It would also be good if they had pointed to the their sources. I have never heard that the grid needs twice the generation for EVs. I have seen multiple times that 1.25 times is a worst case scenario and have made my own calculations to confirm this. That assumes all cars are EVs and all charge at peak demand. Then you subtract the electrical energy the petroleum industry uses to process gasoline. There are no reliable numbers that I could fins for the amount of electricity the petroleum industry uses but it is pretty significant. The 100 trillion number for batteries sounds unbelievable as well. I can't remember which study I read about the storage requirements for the US but it indicated about 12kWhr per person of storage is required for the US grid (excluding Texas). That is about $1000 of LFP batteries (wholesale in mass quantity) that will last about 20 years. This is substantially cheaper than a peaker plant.
The thing about California using 100% renewable power for 100 days is disingenuous. First thing is to note that headline said "for part of the day". Secondly, you can't just turn off a power generation plant for a few hours and then turn it back on again later like you can your little 1000W home generator. Many types of plants can't even significantly vary their output or rapidly spinup if they have been reduced to minimal output (hydroelectric is an exception to this). This means that base load plants are still running so there are no reductions in cost. Also the large inverters used by wind and solar are frequency following which means they can seriously destabilize the grid. You need the base load plants to make sure the grid stays at the correct frequency. Home solar is great. Grid scale solar and wind doesn't make sense, and is just virtue signalling. Hydroelectric, where available, and nuclear are far better options.
Ben, can you, on your website, explain how EV fires are practically impossible? Many building managers avoid putting EV chargers into underground parking claiming fire dangers from EVs.
There are more efficient ways to store heat. Google district heating. But it's essentially heating a huge reservoir of sand and gravel to 500 degrees Celsius and then pulling heat off of that reservoir later.
The EV revolution in many developing countries is via 2 or 3 wheel vehicles (eg scooters), not 4 wheels. In many developing countries the rollout of e public transport will be a game changer - this is already starting. Renewable energy is already helping developing countries via "solar in a box" - a fully functional mini grid inside a shipping container ie a small solar farm of solar panels connected to a battery inside a shipping container - bringing electricity to places where national grids can't reach eg rural areas. Kenya is almost exclusively run on geothermal energy (while solar & on shore wind are the cheapest renewable energy sources, they are not the only sources of renewable energy). There's a wonderful TED talk by William Kamkwanga on how he created a wind turbine using scrap parts referencing a textbook from his local high school. A small city in India is already 100% run on solar power. BTW, it's the G20 countries that produce the most emissions, and it's the wealthiest minority that produce the most emissions in those countries. Stop using poor countries as an excuse for climate inaction (ie continue profiteering from fossil fuels).
Double the electric grid ???? EDF, the electricity provider in France calculated that it would require adding 20% to the grid (not 100%), something they said was totally doable. I think they always assume that everybody is going to be charging their EVs at the same time and the grid has no way to balance demand. If I take my example, I charge twice a week (because I use a simple outlet so basically charge only 18 kWh per night). They also always assume that 100% cars in 2035 will be forced to be EVs, which is not the case. Only the new cars will have to be EVs, there will probably be decades after that before ICEVs are nearly completely gone. Only the supercars and maybe tractors left ... with a lot less gas pumps to fill their tanks.
For the developing world, I'm picturing the following. Electric two and three wheelers. Charged by cheap solar panels. Maybe something like Gogoro (e-scooter swap stations). Here you have free energy, and local energy, for transportation.
Well said, it’s so hard to relate with people who are so good at smoke and mirrors talk. I still object to the concept of debating, as in schools. People argued with language tools to ‘win’ the debate, whether they believed it or not. It has now become, politics
From Norway: 94 % of car sales in August - were EVs! This is a country with a tough climate!
How many Km per day does the average citizen drive?
@@johnwolf3294 TH-cam isn't very fond of people posting links in the comments, but you can probably google it and find the relevant info. In general, the average commute in the US is relatively comparable to the average commute in Norway.
@@hadtopicausername I asked because I'd rather get info directly from someone who lives there than a search engine.
@@johnwolf3294 I live in Norway, but in order to find an answer for you, I'd have to google it myself. You'd have to find a Norwegian statistician who's looked speficially at these data, if you don't want to go via Google or some other search engine.
I remember seeing numbers for the average commute in the US, though, and they really weren't very different from the commutes lots of people do here. Perfectly within the capabilities of all but the shortest range EVs today.
Yes it is and also it has only 5000000 people and a lot of hidro power. Try to extrapolate that to 9 billion people. And still only 24% of the cars from Norway ar electric.
Of course, the oil lobbyist "expert" neglected to tell you that there's about 5 kW/h of electricity invested in every gallon of gas to refine it.
Just because the energy requirement of refining is stated in kWh doesn't mean that the process uses electricity. In some places (like the UK), I understand it does, but here in the US, the distillers are heated by just burning some of the feedstock. That refining cost isn't relevant to 'can the grid cope with EVs?' questions. One often-neglected cost that IS relevant, though, is the cost of pumping crude oil up out of the ground; the pump-jacks ARE run by electric motors. It's hard to estimate how much a reduction in gasoline demand would reduce total pumping costs, though.
@@levenkay4468 The EIA website gives vast amounts of data on what is necessary to refine oil into gasoline and it is a significant amount. I haven't lately broken it down into what the amount of kWh is used to compare with the export of gasoline but it is somewhere close to 5 kWh of electricity for each gallon of gasoline. The other "feedstocks" are significant amounts of natural gas. The EIA website is a fantastic source of information though it can be difficult to find the specific data you are after in the vast wealth of data.
@@levenkay4468 while *some* of the electricity required for petroleum refinement is generated in-house (local to the refinery), most is pumped in by the local utility. In addition, the feedstock you mention could be used to generate electricity for the grid instead of going into gasoline. While it's not 1:1 a net electricity offset, and certainly not an effect on a national scale, there is a significant reduction in energy drawn from the grid for petroleum refining.
@@levenkay4468 doing even more damage to the environment. What do we use when it runs out? What will people do as prices continue to rise due to scarcity? I's rather have something that can be powered by several sources than just one.
@@Trashed20659 I certainly don't favor consuming resources a million times faster than they were produced. I just think it isn't helpful to use mistaken talking points.
EVs are just way more fun to drive, cheaper to operate, and I can charge at home. I love not polluting the air either but nobody else seems to care.
Only die hard gear-heads care about how their wheels go round. Everyone else just wants something safe and reliable.
@@mk1st even one of my buddies who is a gear head wanted to buy an EV after having my Tesla for a month. He ended up getting a plug in hybrid because of “range anxiety” even though he only drives about 30mi/day and charges at home. Whatever!
@@mikeshafer Well at least he's part way there:-)
@mikeshafer using all the hybrids battery 100% to 0% all the time will stress out that tiny battery. He's gonna lose a lot more electric capacity, and will need a new battery sooner. It's heavier, so it's far less efficient. Plus, he still has to do tons of ICE expensive maintenance. Hybrids require more specialized techs... he won't have all that extra storage and surplus power...u gotta open his eyes as to why ALL electric is the only way! Lol
@@mig6220 I tried but for some reason the conservative narrative it pushing hybrids now - my guess is because the oil companies can still profit from them!
On a previous Stossil video, Mills claimed that covering the entire country (4 million sq miles) with solar panels would only meet half the electricity demand. More informed estimates claim 22000 sq miles gives us 100%. Mills only has an undergrad degree in physics, and an actual physicist would know better.
am not arguing in his favour, however there is a lot of variance in how much power is lost through transmission from generation to end use. There could be significant variance in different analysis on this
@@sickbailey21 Combined transmission/distribution/inverter efficiency is about 90%. So, 1000 watts of power from a solar panel ends up as about 900 watts of usable power. Mills claim would require an efficiency of less than 0.3%, i.e. a panel producing 1000 watts would result in less than 3 watts of usable power.
@@bpbr101 you made no reference to transmission here though. If I have to transport this energy 1 mile or 3000 miles to its end point, the losses will be completely different for the comparisons.
This is the point I was making. Solar is very efficient but transporting that energy is another thing. This is the same reason why we haven't just put huge solar farms in the deserts to power the globe
Not only that, but he is forgetting about other sources, like wind and wave, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear energy. The sun sends the earth more energy than has ever been spent in fossil fuels lifetime in a couple of days. And people insist we can't possibly find a way to tap into it? THAT seems like the ridiculous argument.
Yeah, there are alot of strawman or false equivalency videos. The problem is that they assume we fully transition to _one_ technology - which is nonsense.
Great video. The misinformation out there is astounding... I am a pwr systems expert and have an EV so understand all the Technical issues. The big lie is that the grid cant handle EVs... for consumer EVs its mostly charging at home overnight when there is ample capacity. This actually helps the transformers and all the oil filled apparatuur since the load become more steady. A steady load reduced the heating/cooking and pressure stresses on elec apparatus... also, battery tech is and will continue improve. This is allowing all the extra capacity from renewables to be stored for the overnight loads etc...
I recall a recent study showing that overnight EV charging was also helping utilities economically, by giving income for otherwise underused overnight capacity in the grid and generation.
Remember when California was having brownouts and blackouts and they told everyone not to charge their EVs?
Most cars don't need more than a few KWh per charge, anyway. Nay sayers want you to think the grid has to handle a full charge from every car every night. Also, in a city in Calif., they are upgrading the school bus fleet to EVs, and those will be able to put power back into the grid in emergency situations, and my own EV can run my refrigerator in a power outage... already did it once.
Ample for how many? In the UK it's known that big football matches strain the grid, as so many put the kettle on at half time. But millions of EVs charging is fine?
@@bigglyguy8429 The US power grid is over taxed and decades behind in upgrades. Also what about winter time just this past winter EVs were littered about because it was to cold to charge so they lay abandoned waiting for warmer weather.
Stossel used to be a good reporter, but was fired from 60 minutes and now just make fake videos, but is paid to do so.
He’s still a great reporter. Reporting on a lot of great topics that the main stream media just completely miss. He’s just always missed on this subject.
He was a long time reporter on ABC's 2020 show too.
@@GetThemLyrics you're not a long time viewer then. He's completely become a grifter and im pretty sure hes being paid by the Hoover Institution
Libertarianism had a lot of potential that was squandered by grifters like Stossel
@@GetThemLyrics Nobody who does disinformation should be considered a "great reporter". Maybe a "clever spokesperson"
Every single new house should be required to have solar on the roof. In California this is the case, but it’s such a shame that in Nevada it’s not required and we have so much sunshine!
Agreed, and compared to the cost of the house it's a fairly small cost. I'm in Eugene, Oregon, and we installed Solar panels last year. We're not the first but we're clearly still early adopters, and many houses don't have roofs that are well aligned for solar panels.
We were lucky that our house had large SW and West facing roof areas, so we got 23 panels up, and covered our Net electric needs for the year, but even half a dozen panels on each house would make a big difference.
I’m ok with solar but you aren’t putting that crap on my roof just for it to leak and it will they always do.
I’ll put it on my lawn where it makes more sense and is easier to work on
@@ziploc2000 I love the idea of my home being a power plant. Energy independence is here !
@@mikeshafer We have a max 10.5 kW generation, in practice that maxes at about 9.5 kW, and about 75 kWh on the best Summer days. We also have about 10 kWh battery storage (in our garage).
The battery was so we're covered in case of power cuts, which we've had a few times in the past years, so we can run essential loads without the mains. That's everything in the house except the big load items like the washer, dryer and stove. We have two chest freezers in the garage that would run off the battery if necessary.
I see solar panels getting more efficient and cheaper over time, so when these need replacing (in 20-25 years), the replacements will likely generate even more power.
Downside is the cost; because electricity is so cheap here we're looking at a 10-15 year payoff period for the initial investment.
@@ziploc2000 I don’t even consider the return on investment. I just want a $0 electricity bill and energy independence. That’s worth the $20-30K.
More and more electric cars are popping up on American roads everyday. Simply put, they are not going away regardless of anyone's opinion about it.
When I moved in none of my neighbor's had electric cars and two of my friends had electric cars.
Today three of my neighbors have electric cars and two of my friends have electric cars. One owns a hybrid.
My current car is a gasoline vehicle and it's very likely my next car will be an electric.
exactly. they will fill a niche just like petrol and diesel do. We can all get along lol
@@Nordic_Mechanic NO. It is not a niche. In China thery surpassed the 50% of ev in sales last month. Eventualy that will hapen to all countries. A lot of legacy automakers can not sell cars in China for lack of reasonably priced ev.
@@EnriqueAThieleSolivanwake up! China is a communist country and they have mandated electric cars! The US will never be 100% EV. Period.
Check back in a decade. I am sure gas powered cars will still dominate the market.
@5:28 You know what’s funny about this one? This is clearly a choice, and it’s more about greed than anything else. Los Angeles has more homes than anywhere else in CA. It also has more electric cars in total and more EVs purchased/added to the LA grid each year. But LA has something that San Diego, San Francisco, and the other large population centers do not have: a publicly owned, publicly-run, non-profit electric utility. Because of this, Los Angeles was not part of the request to charge EVs at night last summer (which was what the governor actually said). Also, it has never had a rolling blackout, never had planned brownouts, never had curtailment and never had a multi-billion dollar fire caused by an unwillingness to do normal maintenance required to prevent it because some CEO wants to raise the stock price. Angelenos are also ENCOURAGED to add rooftop solar to their homes, and not affected by NEM 3.0 because, again, the utility doesn’t need to make a profit. Perhaps the difficulty with switching to renewals isn’t a physics or even monetary one, but rather a problem with the profit-motive being the driver of things that we just need to do for the good of us all.
***Also, California’s mandate is a goal-posts, you’re right, but it certainly doesn’t specify BEV only. It also includes Hydrogen, plugin hybrids and any other “partial-zero-emission” technology someone wants to come up with.
H2 is only a dream. Follow this: H2 about 2.5X more expensive than gasoline, gasoline being 4X more expensive than gasoline. H2 is 10X more expensive than charging a car.
California is a special case, the energy demand is more an issue than the supply. 17 oil refineries and loads of Fraking drawing electricity. It's no wonder supply can't keep up with demand.
Imagine if the country acted like this during the Apollo era.. we never would have made it to orbit, let alone the moon
Great job, Ben. Keep it up!
True, we know we can change systems and create them. At some point there have been no fueling stations and now there are millions. We can build EV Charger at even more spots. We just have to keep working on it. :)
Yeah, we are at the point where we are being told that further efforts at human progress just aren't cost effective, as conservatives always do. Luckily people like Stossel and Mills are usually eventually swept into the dustbin of history.
What would be the efficiency if we burned gasoline in the power plant to generate electricity used in EVs.
@@byGDur Do you understand that suburbia would need approx 20 times the car space parking for Batt charging as opposed to Fossil. You simply cannot replace a Gas station with the equivalent in Elec because "where does the land come from?". That is why Charging Stations are away from the normal shops and places people want to be.
Also a driver needs to recharge about 3 times more often compared to petrol refilling. Only the enthusiasts with a driveway with a charger on their property enjoy this solution - a small %.
You said "we just have to keep working on it" - really, how many decades, compact Li battery tech has been around over 30 years and has hardly improved. As the guy says, for the same amount of energy, you need 50 times the mass.
The best I would say is, EVs are solution for the few and they are yet to hit with realistic Insurance and road taxes.
If Elec keeps going up - end of EVs.
@howardholt3530 I'm not sure if your comment is solcasm. It takes roughly 5kw's of electricity to extract, transport, and produce 1 litre of useable fuel. (gasoline)
The energy used to produce oil is huge. Worked in O&G for over 30 years
True. I am a retired chemical engineer and worked at oil refiney, and gasolinre (petrochemical complex) that used a cut from the oil refinery to reform it into gasoline. Both facilities had dedicated power platnts withing 1 mile of distance.
Yeah , it's about 360-550 TW per year !^^
That gets me head scratching is that they say our infrastructure is not good enough, but the same person that's using that excuse don't want to improve our infrastructure.
We'd all love better roads and infrastructure. "Renewables" is going backwards though.
Why is there so much resistance to change? The valley of despair is a real and many can’t seem to get out of it. The rationalization for fossil fuel is laughably irrational.
Because EVs are not at parity with ICE in terms of recharge speed or price in the US yet. Manufacturers in US are not willing to put investments towards making a competitive product and politicians keeping Chinese EVs out of the market is the only way to keep US ICE auto makers alive.
Big Oil (aka Big Money) pays huge amounts of money for advertising against EVs which some how make its way down to social media comments (paid shills) infusing a public resistance to change.
Two reasons. 1st People are fearful about what they don’t understand. 2nd Oil is big money business and they are spending lots of money pushing out propaganda so they don’t become irrelevant
Human beings as proven in sociological studies are more prone to act on perceived losses than promised gains. If an EV won't go 400 miles on a charge that took 5 minutes, which is the experience of ICE drivers, there is a perceived loss. The fact that 98% of most driving is less than 100 miles a day doesn't register. A perceived gain would be that you can charge at home, negating the trip to a gas station, and will save over 50% in fuel costs, along with less service needs, registers less than the loss does for some folks.
@@Trashed20659 Yeah, I suspect that most people don't understand that I spend less time refueling than they do. I plug in when I get home, and unplug when I leave. On road trips, I plug in, and walk away. I get a sandwich, and usually have to rush back by the time I've gotten my sandwich and eaten it, and taken a bathroom break.
Having watched a family of five spend 15 minutes at a gas station, between turns in the bathroom and buying snacks, I'm sceptical on people's increased speed, at least for families, plus the inconvenience of someone having to hold a gas pump handle, then move the car. But I'm also used to the way I saw in Europe, of people stopping after two hours driving for a break, not to refuel, just to take a break. It's a more relaxing way, which pairs nicely with the more pleasant driving of an EV. And EV camping is convenient and comfortable, just stretch out in back with the car keeping a nice temperature all night.
A lot of the people that knock EV's either are connected to petroleum companies in some way or are stuck in the past and don't want to change which is really too bad because it's going to hurt the rest of us that do want to change and make things better for all of us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As someone who doesn't support the mandate or tax credits for Evs I dont see Evs as the future we have electric vehicles that are over 100 years old. Electric vehicles are only useful in densely populated areas. They do not save you money they do not have a resale value and limiting yourself to one fuel source is unwise. Many many more reasons that an EV is a poor purchase decision but I dont want to write a story in the comments section. Also you cannot freely travel with an EV and when the run out of charge while traveling you need a tow truck not a two gallon gas can.
Ben, you are rapidly becoming my go-to channel for debunking anti-EV FUD and disinformation.
It took me 1 day (installation time) to have Tesla switch me to 100% renewable with solar panels and powerwalls, in fact I have a 10% surplus that is exported. So not only have I been basically removed our demand from the grid part of someone else's demand is removed. Many more householders are doing the same thing and the State of California is adding massive battery storage system to take the excess solar/wind generation to be used when needed.
Changing to renewables is no longer just a way to help the environment it is a long term economic positive.
The battery storage is a requirement now in CA. because with so much power being dumped on the grid all day, much was wasted. With batteries, you truly get to use your own solar power, and Edison owes you little,
The big immediate win for electric urban transportation is the enormous reduction in particle emissions. Recent studies show 24 hours of just being in Rotterdam equals smoking 7 cigarettes a day. We still need get better at making clean electricity, but that's another can of worms.
Your worried about emissions what about the waste batteries that are going to be in the landfills.
@@whatahowl1 Did you miss the part I said about we need to learn more about clean electrification?
..oh, and please read up on battery tech, in the Netherlands we power a stadium for a full soccer match using 'discarded' car batteries (charged by solar), they're still fine for other uses before they need to become landfill.
@@dimitri877 by the time they become truly dead, I bet someone would figure out a way to economically recycle the dead batteries. No need to throw them in landfills
@@whatahowl1 Batteries last a very long time, a 100kwh battery, with 200kwh/kg energy density would provide a good 300 or more miles to a full charge worst case scenario.
This is poor by modern energy density standards, but worst case, then that battery will worst case handle 2000 charge cycles before it loses 20% of it's range.
If the battery died at that point it will have provided 600,000 miles of driving range, but it wouldn't be dead or useless at this point.
Once the batteries are realistically useless from a vehicle powering perspective, they can still be used for static storage, after that they become a useful resource for materials, to be recycled for the next generation of batteries.
They are valuable and will have a whole new industry created around recycling and we will no longer need to pull resources from the Earth.
Same is true of old Solar panels and wind turbines.
You're essentially creating an issue which has already been solved to fear monger against the solution to mankind's energy needs.
@@dimitri877 They won't go into landfill, we already know how to recycle any battery, while recovering 95% of the whole pack to reuse it's resources to make new batteries, which likely require less lithium to produce more energy storage.
I love your videos, mostly the fact that you are speaking the truth. Combating skeptics, government, the fossil fuel industry, legacy auto, and just general low-information people.
One thing that truly needs to be addressed in California is carbon emissions from fires caused by poorly maintained power lines. The safety and reliability of the grid itself needs to be a cornerstone of the shift to electrification.
It’s all about DER in the future
Leapfrogging is already happening in places like Thailand and India. But not necessarily with cars, but with things like electric bikes and Tuk Tuks. It's still about displacing fossil fuels though and the convenience of electricity (and the ability to generate your own fuel in those rural areas.) It's really about the democratization of energy. People who were previously beholden to fuel companies and the refining process, can now throw up a couple of solar panels and fuel their own transportation.
True.
I notice how they also always gloss over the damage drilling, transporting, storing, refining, transporting, and storing again oil does to the environment. Not just the carbon in the atmosphere but oil spills, toxic chemicals in drinking water, etc. While they love to bring up the problem with cobalt and the likelihood a portion of it is mined by children and slaves they never talk about the black market that exists in Africa for oil and gas. They act as if the solution is not perfect there is no sense in trying it. I will take an imperfect solution that at least starts the process of be greener than doing nothing until that so-called perfect system is invented.
Or the cobalt used in oil refineries.
@@steveknight878 True.
Don't forget the extra costs in terms of health in people having breathing problems in cities with lots of vehicular traffic. And the extra cost to US taxpayers in the form of the US military being deployed and stationed overseas in regional hotspots to keep that oil flowing relatively smoothly.
I don't see OPEC or Big Oil footing those bills, so it's extra costs we have to bear to use gas.
Usually EV critics can't refute those things, so they resort to saying "fake news" or childish insults.
Your complaint about oil apply to EVs in fact EVs use highly toxic and radioactive metals mined primarily with slave labor in China. A study released shows that EVs require so much energy to be produced that you have to drive an EV over 100,000 miles to brake even with the carbon foot print of an ICE vehicle.
@@brucegillingham2793 Ben talked about this in one if his previous debunking videos.
Yes, EVs have a slightly higher emissions cost when the battery is being produced. But after they're made, EV's are only as dirty as their power source.
And the cleaner their power source, the less emissions they have, whereas a gas car will always pollute no matter where or how its gas was created.
Plus when a battery is no longer considered usable in an EV, it can still be used as a backup power system for buildings.
Or more likely it can be recycled where a lot of the minerals can be reclaimed and reused in new batteries, lessening the demand for new raw materials as more EV's are taken off the road due to age and accidents.
Do these people, and the people who pay them, really think it's better to pad their bank accounts than not constantly pump noxious gasses into our environment? Where do they think these noxious gasses and assorted effluvia go, even without the scientific evidence that is readily available? And speaking of the grid, where did it come from in the first place?
A lot of Rich people do not care about what their businesses do to mankind or the planet. Greed has that power. If they had to cover the costs of the damage caused by their products, they would get out of the business immediately. It is only because society has subsidized the true cost of using fossil fuels that it is profitable.
Keep telling them Ben! The public must be informed of big oils lies.
I like Stossel, but it was crazy how far off he was on this one. Thanks for addressing this video ❤
Way too many people believe what Stossil says because they saw him on store brand 60 minutes.
I think people like what he says because he LEFT the 60min show.
At one time there were no gas stations in the country. Just imagine if there were idiots back then. We wouldn't have any cars today. That's the beauty of free market. If there's a need, someone will fill that need.
And new technology always replaces the old in a period from 10 to 14 years., achieving 50% in ujust 5 to 7 years. So by 2028 it will be over since ICE cars will become more expensive as they lost the economy of mass production, while the ev dues to improvement in technology will decrease in price. Price of the gasoline will also increase a gas stations increase the price in orther to compensate for the loss volume on sales. Latewr some gas stations will close, and the trip to the gas stations will become larger. Compare to charging while one is sleeping, and having full power every morning.
@@EnriqueAThieleSolivan Swing and a miss. EV production is down globally EVs have been around over a century so your 10-14 year estimate is non applicable. IF it wasnt for tax credits, and other government controls EVs would not be on the market at all. Tesla only exists only because we taxpayers "helped" EV buyers make their purchase. They same policy that made Tesla possible made golf carts ubiquitous in the US because they are considered the same type of vehicle as an Tesla.
Those vehicle efficiency comparison charts are great Ben! Every $1 of gasoline, 80 cents is wasted!
True.
No, in cold climates, a tiny portion of that heat is used to warm the occupants in winter months.
Love the info and references. Fantastic job, Ben, thanks for continuing to debunk the naysayers!
No one ever seems to mention the fact that we're going to run out of oil at some point. I created the oil depletion allowance for a reason way back then they knew it would run out one day.
And as supplies dwindle the price is going to go up as it goes down. It's already getting unaffordable.
Ha! I remember back in the 90s they tried convincing all us students that we had to go electric because we were running out of fossil fuels by 2022 or something silly like that. We have more oil availible now then back then.
Also, fossil fuels are volital
Evaporating massive amounts from drilling, refining, transporting and storing.
These men were hired by the oil industry to put out arguments saying that EVs are bad. It is like tobacco industry lawyers arguing that smoking doesn't cause cancer. As with many internet counterpoints, they have some small true points, but they exaggerate the problems and ignore working solutions. The electrical grid growth will continue to expand, simply because there are profits to be made. There were steadily increases in electricity demand for decades as air conditioners were added to vehicles, homes, and businesses. But over the years electrical generation increased to meet those demands. And in places like California, a good percentage of that growing generation was using renewable resources, and almost zero coal. The ecological mess that we are trying to fix today came from NOT adapting and innovating, and doing things the same way that our forefathers did. We need to make smarter choices, moving forward.
The Chinese companies CATL, BYD and Geely have LFP batteries that are good for at least one million kilometers. EVs are here to stay!!!
Were still waiting on all the other previous EV claims to come true. Let me know when the batteries are reliably hitting there service life estimates. Now excuse me I have to go warranty three of my lithium tool batteries that are less then two years old and dont charge any longer.
@@brucegillingham2793I got a neighbour who compared his electric scooter battery to a Tesla car battery, to him it’s the same kinda battery. That’s it! Should we laugh with him or cry for him?
2:20 - Yes and afaik, this specific and important calculation, was one of the first steps which led to the creation of Tesla which was founded 2003. So at least 20 year we have this knowledge.
They won't revise it, forget it. The point IS to MISinform. They won't work at fixing anything; it's their goal to be retrogrades.
Those people remind me of the story of King Canute who placed his throne on a beach and commanded the rising tide to recede. 😅
But Canute did it to show his followers that he wasn't power incarnate by demonstrating that in fact the tide wouldn't stop coming in. These guys are the opposite. They truly think that they can stop the tide.
I see that even the Amish are starting to adopt EVs....
High desert Californian here . I can tell you the grid reliability and capacity is so much better than last and previous years . Just a few alerts and it was a scorcher this summer . Now completed solar projects usually can't come in line immediately . They can take as long as 5 years because you may have to increase grid capacity to handle the higher load . It is weird it's done this way . Panels sitting out in the sun deteriorate even when not in operation
Thanks for another excellent episode. The best weapon against FUD is knowledge. I just talked to one of my uncles, and he said he wouldn't drive an EV cause it takes too long to charge. When I mentioned my Tesla MY takes 20 min to charge, he wouldn't believe it.
Most “studies” also seem to ignore the extremely variable cost of delivery of energy from its original source. The cost of hauling liquid fuel to, say, the Australian outback, or any point of use that is distant from the point of production is very significant. However, electricity is distributed by infrastructure that already exists for other purposes, and more-and-more is being generated locally, particularly solar generation. Many EVs are running on energy that is delivered from the very roof under which they are parked; a trend that will only increase.
Currently, there is plenty of grid energy available for moving all transportation to electricity. In fact, EVs can lower electric rates by increasing the load factor of existing thermal plants. It's simply a matter of rate schedules to incentivize offpeak charging. Data centers are an entirely different matter.
In Toronto area we have a new time of use rate plan since last December... 2.8c per KW/hour! For overnight. So now I am spending 8 dollars per month to drive it around versus 18!!
@@sugermaple536 Exactly!
Speaking about just cars, I do not believe we should dictate the type of vehicle people own. I personally own a Tesla, but I am not going to tell my neighbor that he must own an EV too. I think we should have EVs, Hybrids, and ICE vehicles. They each have their own use cases.
One thing you missed is that as the grid becomes cleaner and provides cheaper power, the initial CO2 footprint of EVs and solar and wind power becomes lower, and cheeper.
Those guys were ridiculous… great debunking analysis 👍👍👍
Shenzhen China is great example for 100% EV only city
Australia has one city also.
1) does he count the energy lost in transporting oil from Saudi to refineries and then from there to gas stations?
2) You won't need the electricity to power gas stations, nor for the refineries.
they always conviently forget those points
From dr8ill to burned fuel inside the engine the efficiency is only 20% 80% of the original energy is used on shipping, refining, transportation, etc. When a resourse is limited why waste 80% of it?
Nobody seems to recognize that Refining requires an enormous of electricity and they suck that juice 24 by 7. Charging cars, buses, semi trucks will be done at night when many grids have excess energy.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for these guys to do a better follow up , I think Ben is being too polite and generous to these clearly payed for fossil fuel appologists
At this moment my reasoning is. if it can do 300km + on a charge and when required charge from 20 - 80% in less than an hour on a fast charger, I will be happy with an EV even though I do at least one trip in excess of 2000 km every 2 years. My only restraint is the cost of acquiring an EV. In my country there is no cheap used EV's.
These Luddites have been coming up with the same miss-information year after year. Meanwhile the public have been adopting electric cars and looking at other ways of getting around like bicycles and e-bikes. They've been installing solar panels, home storage batteries, solar thermal water heating, heat pumps and improving their insulation. Engineers all over the globe have been putting up wind turbines, building solar farms, installing tidal turbines and new battery storage. Research into improvements on all of the above is being carried out with great vigour and the rate of progress is exponential.
The results of all of this effort is nothing short of astounding. There remains much to be done, but it is being done, and nobody engaged in the effort has any doubt that it will be done.
Talking about efficiency, ~80% of the solar energy hitting the solar panels is not converted to electricity (aka: waisted)😂.
"We are 10 times better [at converting sunlight to energy] than the fastest-growing plant that has existed on Earth before humanity got here. We're doing pretty well." www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/solar-panel-efficiency/
"Energy per pound" of electricity is near infinity. An empty battery weighs as much as a full one, so no weight is added when charging the battery. This in contrast to gas, where an empty tank weighs much less than a full tank. It's only advantage is that the tank itself is so much lighter than a battery.
The next big game-changer for EV efficiency will be Aptera, an EV which uses about a third of the amount of energy per mile as a traditional EV, AND generates its own power from the sun, taking the grid inefficiency out of the equation for the first 30-40 miles of each day of driving.
I appreciate that 80% energy "waste" in a gas car in winter. All the mandates for EVs do is raise the price of gas cars so people end up buying enough EVs to meet the mandate. We should be ending subsidies on oil and all energy sources so free market can manage the appropriate mix.
The Fossil Fuel industry uses the more electricy than all other industries.. In North America, the Fossil Fuel industry uses 11% of all electricy generation ..
What percentage of energy in the US is produced by fossil fuels?
@@brucegillingham2793 38% and falling .. How much does the burning of fossil fuels cost everyone in health insurance? Answer , in the US , just under $400,000,000,000.00 .. $400 billion every year .. The carbon makes kids stewpid, your d1ck limp and takes your Gramma sooner than it should..
They are so worried about how much electricity is needed for EVs but totally indifferent to the electricity requirements of data centres, AI and crypto mining.
I watched the whole video and still trying to figure out where the thumbnail has any relevance..
Ben I remember when I was a kid and read about a carburetor that was designed that could get enormous results in mpg. The government stepped in and took the device and forbid him from ever building another one. Same thing is happening. Those that love oil so much are the same ones that hate alternative methods of transportation other than oil usage vehicles
Ben, I really appreciate what you have been doing lately with the fact checking of others. Your data and videos provide me with information I can use to help others understand.
Boy has Stossel has fallen.
Why don’t you comment the energy to create gazoline, which corresponds to the energy to make the battery and produce electricity
Wait, I live in Europe, I have never heard about people in Poland lining up in panic to get coal. Anyone care to share some source?
Poland gets most of its gas (natural gas as opposed to oil/petrol) from Russia. Following the invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia for their hostile act, many Poles were afraid that the Russian gas supplies would be interrupted, hence their rush to secure an alternative heating source.
Hi Ben, 80% of energy loss comes from basic thermodynamics. Not all heat can be converted to work, but, all work can be converted to heat.
California government did NOT say don't use your electric car they recommended against charging at peak time 4p-9p, which no one does because it's more expensive, this gets intentionally misreported frequently. Batteries time shift, you can charge when power is abundant and cheap, use it whenever
I remember when the term "multimedia" came into vogue during the '90's. With the release of such hardware as the Video Toaster (for the Amiga), it was said to be the beginning of the democratization of TV & video production content. As with most things, this has had some negative effects. Case in point: Stossel TV.
The two guys in this video are your classic older dudes who say nothing except lots of whataboutism
I resent the ageism
Sad isn’t it! Just because they’re older doesn’t mean they’re right, otherwise there won’t be so much poverty at old age.
All of these videos debunking ev lies always fail to point out the part about how refining oil into a gallon of gas requires about 13.5kwh on average. A little napkin math shows that this is also about how much usable work an ICE engine extracts from a gallon of gas. Gas is simply a product that oil companies produce to hand over a packet of energy to consumers in liquid form. EVs cut out the middle man! Leave the oil in the ground and let the oil companies die already.. At the very least, use this to debunk the whole "grid can't handle it" argument because it already is in a sense.
EVs are great for renewable-fed grids because there is some recharge flexibility. Many EV owners can select charge times that correspond with peak renewable generation. This flattens the "duck curve" to reduce peak loads. Variable rate structures will incentivize this. Also, local solar panels can reduce the need for grid upgrades. I gave up on Stossel years ago.
I enjoy making decisions based on facts and actual information. Thanks for helping me.
Great post!❤
So true 8:00 - I wonder 120 years ago people would have talked about the horseless carriage verses horse and cart. At 65 years old I thrive on the knowledge that the technology continues to change. It can be a rollercoaster ride but the rollercoaster is more exciting than the merry-go-round.
You said it yourself the deadline is the motivation. Not that it is better technology to replace our current transportation. So essentially force you to comply rather than free market decisions.
5:43 - It is an energy transition not a cliff. The grid is growing all the time. As we progress, the grid WILL cope!
We actually have PLENTY of electricity. SO much that where I live electricity prices are ZERO in the middle of the day. I can get electricity for 0c/kW and the power company still makes money as the wholesale price of elecrtricity is negative.
Everyone ignores the fact that when ICV is taken off the road the electricity that is used to produce and deliver gas on average is 80% compared to EV so the real addition is only 20%. finally oil is burned and never reused which is continuously mined. The recycling of minerals will reach 95%. THUS IN THE END MINING WILL CONTINUE TO DECREASE SINCE WE ALREADY HAVE IT IN RECYCLING.
The battery storage he mentioned is relevant. We need to look at the lifecycle of EVs and that includes the generation, storage and transmission (like you mentioned). The graph showing that kinetic energy is converted 100% is not accurate because they skipped the storage losses and you can't really skip storage because that PV panel will be useless in the evening. Looks like they don't show the maximum capacity each type of power generation and how much it can generate over time. In my view, nuclear power generation is the best way of generating power at large scale with a high availability. You can use PV at home to address the overloading of the network or increase the voltage of the transmission and distribution of the network. Mining for materials will have an impact on the environment and that is just something we will have to work with.
Is that video funded by organizations that have benefits suppressing EVs? Like... ICE producers?
According to the 'Data from US electricity generation...' graphic, coal and nuclear have roughly the same energy loss. What?! Also, a valid point is that even coal is more efficient than the average gasoline-powered vehicle. Even with existing electricity generation sources, EVs are more efficient than gasoline-powered vehicles.
I agree with how you presented your argument.
I have owned an electric f150 for 2 years. Best decision I ever made. I don’t charge it every day at home cause I don’t need to, but if you got one, you’d be happy to and you’d be happy you threw away
Your gas burning vehicle that is a waste of money and time filling up at the gas station the part of the change it’s the greatest thing ever
Great video Ben, consider a ‘well to wheel’ efficiency and comparison video. With your clear logical reasoning and some good charts!
Ethiopia is going towards 100% renewable electricity and they are banning ICE vehicles. They have big hydroelectric dams, solar, wind and some geothermal. They don't have good fossil fuel resources. The government decided they are spending way too much on oil imports and their infrastructure is already underdeveloped as well. So it will be easier and cheaper for them to go electric.
omg and the other video has about 110K upvotes 💀
We really need to get better at sharing or at least upvoting "our" content from Ben and the Everything Electric Show, JustHaveAThink etc. Sometimes I see lots of comments but only 1 upvote. Upvotes are free to give out! "Our" channels have sometimes over 100k subscribers but only a few hundred upvotes. Let's try to improve this please - Rant over :D
Good Job Ben. I used to like John Stossel, but this is pure BS. For example, California's governor did not say "don't use your electric car." EV owners were asked to not charge until later in the evening, after the peak demand, IF they did not need to. This is something most EV owners do anyway, plug in when home for the night, with their car programmed to not charge until the "super off peak" rates start at 11-12 o'clock.
Also, there is no need to "double the grid" when the entire fleet is electric. It is more like a 30% increase, not 100%. With 2035 ICE ban, it will take until 2055 before most of the fossil cars are scrapped.
I live in Louisville (an area not considered the best for solar power) and my daughter and I both charge our electric cars off them, as well as run the house. Solar is dependent on the season and the weather, but we produce enough in the summer that it makes enough credits for the winter. The whole thing saves us thousands of dollars a year and puts practically no pressure on the grid. In fact, it means that the grid doesn’t have to supply our previous needs. The Stossel video is so obviously wrong and bad that it seems to me that I can only think it is there to support the continued existence of the status quo.
I am very sure that Mr. Stossel and his fellow "Physicist" will happily buy an EV next time they buy new cars if it happens 3 years from now, just like 80-90% of all Americans will do at that time, and he will love it without a doubt
Just like he has a smartphone, a huge flatpanel TV and is subscribing to a streaming service
Hmm, $100 trillion in mega packs to temporarily hold the power wind and solar (free). That might suggest why Teslas investment in mega packs is growing at an exponential pace and may out perform the auto industry. Hmm, sounds like one persons failure to see the opportunity is another persons massive profit.
Thank you, again, for what you are doing.
Wish the US would invest in more Nuclear power. At night, because the plant is underutilized, they sell the power extremely cheap. Georgia Power for instance has a $.01/kW rate for charging your EV at night due to the abundance of extra nuclear power.
Nuclear Fusion yes Nuclear fissen HELL NO, NO THANKS TO THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF NUCLEAR WASTE
Existing nuclear power plants have already acquired special taxes to support them because they are more expensive than wind and solar.
Private insurance companies will not reinsure nuclear construction costs or decommissioning costs.
Any excesses in decommissioning costs are dumped on people who may not be born yet and who will never benefit directly from the power of the nuclear plant generates. Which is pretty immoral.
The traditional Nuclear Power plants are being replaced by solar energy farms. Al Nuclear energy power station take decades to be finished, they cost about 4X their estimated cost, and requires a lot of people to operate. Renewables on the contrary are made in am single year, low cost to bulit, low maintenance.. They will dissapear (they are closing plants, with no new construction) until Nuclear Fusion is available. Then as with all new technologies they have to compete with the renewables, that every year cost less to manufacture. FN Fuusion can be relegated to space travel if the reactors can be made samll enought.
@@EnriqueAThieleSolivan The problem with solar is they're fragile. One good hailstorm can take out the array and at night, it completely shuts down.
Sodium batteries are geting really popular for mostly stationary energy storage.
I’ve seen some interesting things on this!
You’re correct because 3rd world countries leap frogged straight to cellular instead of dedicated phone lines like 1st world countries did. As it was far more efficient and cheaper to implement than it would have been to develop a dying system for consumer usage.
Speaking of efficiency losses, I'm wondering if anyone calculated how much fuel is burned by the ships and trucks that transport oil to the refineries, and how much is burned by the trucks to transport the refined gas to the pumps.
It would also be good if they had pointed to the their sources. I have never heard that the grid needs twice the generation for EVs. I have seen multiple times that 1.25 times is a worst case scenario and have made my own calculations to confirm this. That assumes all cars are EVs and all charge at peak demand. Then you subtract the electrical energy the petroleum industry uses to process gasoline. There are no reliable numbers that I could fins for the amount of electricity the petroleum industry uses but it is pretty significant.
The 100 trillion number for batteries sounds unbelievable as well. I can't remember which study I read about the storage requirements for the US but it indicated about 12kWhr per person of storage is required for the US grid (excluding Texas). That is about $1000 of LFP batteries (wholesale in mass quantity) that will last about 20 years. This is substantially cheaper than a peaker plant.
The thing about California using 100% renewable power for 100 days is disingenuous. First thing is to note that headline said "for part of the day". Secondly, you can't just turn off a power generation plant for a few hours and then turn it back on again later like you can your little 1000W home generator. Many types of plants can't even significantly vary their output or rapidly spinup if they have been reduced to minimal output (hydroelectric is an exception to this). This means that base load plants are still running so there are no reductions in cost. Also the large inverters used by wind and solar are frequency following which means they can seriously destabilize the grid. You need the base load plants to make sure the grid stays at the correct frequency. Home solar is great. Grid scale solar and wind doesn't make sense, and is just virtue signalling. Hydroelectric, where available, and nuclear are far better options.
Ben, can you, on your website, explain how EV fires are practically impossible? Many building managers avoid putting EV chargers into underground parking claiming fire dangers from EVs.
There are more efficient ways to store heat. Google district heating.
But it's essentially heating a huge reservoir of sand and gravel to 500 degrees Celsius and then pulling heat off of that reservoir later.
The EV revolution in many developing countries is via 2 or 3 wheel vehicles (eg scooters), not 4 wheels. In many developing countries the rollout of e public transport will be a game changer - this is already starting.
Renewable energy is already helping developing countries via "solar in a box" - a fully functional mini grid inside a shipping container ie a small solar farm of solar panels connected to a battery inside a shipping container - bringing electricity to places where national grids can't reach eg rural areas. Kenya is almost exclusively run on geothermal energy (while solar & on shore wind are the cheapest renewable energy sources, they are not the only sources of renewable energy). There's a wonderful TED talk by William Kamkwanga on how he created a wind turbine using scrap parts referencing a textbook from his local high school. A small city in India is already 100% run on solar power.
BTW, it's the G20 countries that produce the most emissions, and it's the wealthiest minority that produce the most emissions in those countries. Stop using poor countries as an excuse for climate inaction (ie continue profiteering from fossil fuels).
Great work, Ben!
Great analysis Ben, keep the truth about electric cars coming.
Double the electric grid ???? EDF, the electricity provider in France calculated that it would require adding 20% to the grid (not 100%), something they said was totally doable.
I think they always assume that everybody is going to be charging their EVs at the same time and the grid has no way to balance demand. If I take my example, I charge twice a week (because I use a simple outlet so basically charge only 18 kWh per night).
They also always assume that 100% cars in 2035 will be forced to be EVs, which is not the case. Only the new cars will have to be EVs, there will probably be decades after that before ICEVs are nearly completely gone. Only the supercars and maybe tractors left ... with a lot less gas pumps to fill their tanks.
For the developing world, I'm picturing the following. Electric two and three wheelers. Charged by cheap solar panels. Maybe something like Gogoro (e-scooter swap stations). Here you have free energy, and local energy, for transportation.
Come on Ben, these guys have actual hardback books and real spinney globes in their offices! They must know what they are talking about!
😅
Well said, it’s so hard to relate with people who are so good at smoke and mirrors talk. I still object to the concept of debating, as in schools. People argued with language tools to ‘win’ the debate, whether they believed it or not. It has now become, politics