More EV power requirement calculations

[SubieRubyRoo]

Hey @OVERKILL are these numbers below correct? If Wikipedia is accepted to be close, it says that the entirety of Bruce's output is ~48,000 GWh/year? And if it is assumed that every ICE car is replaced by an EV with a 100kW pack (I know, they're not all this big), the charging requirement for just the US and Canada would be ~32,000 GWh per week! In the hopes of keeping this open for discussion, namely the fact that the grid will never support this amount, and we certainly don't have enough excess capacity to come anywhere near supporting this if it is ever fully implemented, that's all I'll personally comment.

For reference, the entire US has roughly 809 total TWh of nuclear generation, equivalent to only 25 weeks worth of supply for the scenario above, and that's devoting Every. Single. Watt. to charging EVs! Thoughts?

In Europe there is around 400 million cars. Now the EU is banning new fossil fuel cars by 2035, so imagine that all these 400 million cars would be switched out to electric. Now lets assume the cars have a battery pack of 100kw, which is what you need if you want a somewhat decent range. Imagine that all these cars get charged fully at least once a week. They would need a whopping 40 000 gigawatts of electricity – every week. I don’t think you fully understand how large that number actually is. For comparison, an average nuclear reactor produces 1 gigawatt. Here we need 40 000 gigawatts. Maybe you begin to see the problem here with electric cars. The grid will never be able to handle it. It gets even more ridiculous if we were to use wind power. A wind turbine is rated at around 0.003 gigawatts. That is the maximum it can produce, of course when there is less wind or no wind that number goes down dramatically. Again, we need 40 000 gigawatts, not 0.003. This doesn’t mean we need 40 000 nuclear reactors, as the cars won’t all be charging at the same time, but we would still need a lot of new nuclear reactors. The current grid would not be able to handle all these new electric cars. Imagine how many wind turbines we would need to be able to power all those electric cars. You would just see an army of wind turbines polluting the skyline everywhere. It’s unsustainable.

No, there is no future for a mass adoption of electric cars. What will end up happening is that you will walk or take public transport, while the elite are the only ones that can afford cars. It is all about control. They want to get rid of private car ownership. They don’t want you to have the freedom of traveling freely. They only want you to be able to travel where they decide that you can travel. Just like in the Soviet Union where the regular people couldn’t own cars, only the party elites owned cars.

 

[OVERKILL]

Hey @OVERKILL are these numbers below correct? If Wikipedia is accepted to be close, it says that the entirety of Bruce's output is ~48,000 GWh/year? And if it is assumed that every ICE car is replaced by an EV with a 100kW pack (I know, they're not all this big), the charging requirement for just the US and Canada would be ~32,000 GWh per week! In the hopes of keeping this open for discussion, namely the fact that the grid will never support this amount, and we certainly don't have enough excess capacity to come anywhere near supporting this if it is ever fully implemented, that's all I'll personally comment.

For reference, the entire US has roughly 809 total TWh of nuclear generation, equivalent to only 25 weeks worth of supply for the scenario above, and that's devoting Every. Single. Watt. to charging EVs! Thoughts?

This person you are quoting is confused on kWh vs kW. EV battery capacity is measured in kWh.

You can't just go by nameplate on the pack. While EV charge draw will drive-up demand, you'd have to do the calculation based on average miles driven to get a better idea.

So, for example, let's use the Tesla Model 3, which has a real-world consumption of 25.9kWh/100 miles per this article:

2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range Falls Just Short of EPA Range | Edmunds

Edmunds took a 2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range to the streets to see just how long that range actually is. It's EPA-rated for 353 miles, but things change in the real world. Here's how the Model 3 performed in our testing.

www.edmunds.com

So, 0.259kWh/mile.

The average American drives what, 15,000 miles/year? So that's 3,885kWh/year. Let's round that up to 4,000kWh/year for the sake of this discussion.

There are 287 million cars in the USA:

The Number of Cars in the US in 2022/2023: Market Share, Distribution, and Trends - Financesonline.com

In 2020, there were 286.9 million cars in the US. While car sales for the past few years isn’t a simple upward line, other factors such as increasing car age and the need for a personal mobility means amid the pandemic, are making sure that the number of US cars is more or less progressively...

financesonline.com

Let's say by 2035, we have 25% of the US fleet upgraded to EV, that gives us 71,750,000 cars. With an average electricity consumption of 4,000kWh/year, that's 287 billion/kWh; 287TWh/year.

As you note, Bruce produces ~48TWh/year (it will produce around 55TWh/year after its upgrades). So, to cover the average demand of ~72 million EV's in the US, you'd need to build 6x new Bruce-sized plants.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

As you note, Bruce produces ~48TWh/year (it will produce around 55TWh/year after its upgrades). So, to cover the average demand of ~72 million EV's in the US, you'd need to build 6x new Bruce-sized plants.

And on that note, what's your wild *$$ guess of what just one new, ground-up Bruce sized plant would run? Wiki says the actual cost was basically $7.8 billion, but that B cost 3x what A did...

If you take when Bruce B Station was completed (1987) and do just a pure inflationary calculation, that turns out to roughly $16B for a "half-Bruce", so let's call it $200B+ (6x $32B ea) just to power EVs in the US at a 25% capacity.

 

[wpod]

And on that note, what's your wild *$$ guess of what just one new, ground-up Bruce sized plant would run? Wiki says the actual cost was basically $7.8 billion, but that B cost 3x what A did...

If you take when Bruce B Station was completed (1987) and do just a pure inflationary calculation, that turns out to roughly $16B for a "half-Bruce", so let's call it $200B+ (6x $32B ea) just to power EVs in the US at a 25% capacity.

Subie,,,, you are not supposed to think aboiut things. You are supposed to just believe what the Tv tells you to believe and obey.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Subie,,,, you are not supposed to think aboiut things. You are supposed to just believe what the Tv tells you to believe and obey.

While I'm at it, I also realized that Biggie Smalls figured out why more government control is never a solution to an issue... mo' money, mo' problems!!

 

[OVERKILL]

And on that note, what's your wild *$$ guess of what just one new, ground-up Bruce sized plant would run? Wiki says the actual cost was basically $7.8 billion, but that B cost 3x what A did...

If you take when Bruce B Station was completed (1987) and do just a pure inflationary calculation, that turns out to roughly $16B for a "half-Bruce", so let's call it $200B+ (6x $32B ea) just to power EVs in the US at a 25% capacity.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

[Cujet]

Just a reminder, the number of Watt hours to power an EV is measured at the battery output.

The power produced at the power plant, to charge that battery may be as much as 35% more. AND the power you purchase (overage) to charge the EV is on the order of 15-25% more than what comes out of the battery.


If your rate is 10c per KWh, and your EV is telling you that it uses 1KWh per mile, your cost is not 10c per mile due to the above. Also, consider the taxes and fees on the power bill.

For example, if my FPL "elec serv charge" is $350, the total bill is almost $500 due to Six addl taxes and fees. A 1KWh/Mi EV would cost me at least 14.5c per mile at the 10c rate.

 

[Trav]

My bill went up to 26c per KWh as of Dec 1 plus lots of taxes and fees, now they would like me to attach a EV to that? I was born at night but not last night.

 

[Snagglefoot]

And on that note, what's your wild *$$ guess of what just one new, ground-up Bruce sized plant would run? Wiki says the actual cost was basically $7.8 billion, but that B cost 3x what A did...

If you take when Bruce B Station was completed (1987) and do just a pure inflationary calculation, that turns out to roughly $16B for a "half-Bruce", so let's call it $200B+ (6x $32B ea) just to power EVs in the US at a 25% capacity.

Since the yearly US deficient is over 1 Trillion why just tack on the $200 B and build the plants?

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Since the yearly US deficient is over 1 Trillion why just tack on the $200 B and build the plants?

That’s the exact thinking that’s gotten us this far up the creek already!

 

[Trav]

We are so far up the creek with no paddle and a boat with holes, the flex seal boat looks more sea worthy.

 

[PandaBear]

I don't ever believe the limitation on EV is on the generation, but more on the grid's ability to transport it. On the plus side, having a massive pool of massive battery that can be charged at any time is a plus. There is no easier way to dampen the duck curve than letting the price dictate when will people charge their car other than commute hours.

Assuming there are always some people working from home, we will not have a vacant time that consumption suddenly fell off the cliff, we will also not have a problem avoiding the early evening ramp if people charge during day time using the output of a solar.

Wind will still be a problem, but still, charging more vs less based on price is the way to go.

 

[Gyro Gearloose]

Out of curiosity one day I looked up the gasoline and diesel used in the US for a year, made some round number assumptions on the engine efficiencies converting those BTU‘s to work, and then look at the kwh required to replace that work, and allowing for some efficiency increases involved in going electric (giving EV,s the same efficiency credit that hybrids have over regular cars). I compared that number to the existing annual US electric generation, and at the end of a quite involved spreadsheet came up with about a 25-30% increase in current electrical generation required to completely electrify the transport sector.

You have to watch the people making the claims of the electricity required for EV’s because they sometimes just convert the gas and diesel energy to kwh on a heat basis without considering engine efficiency and useful work done.

 

[UncleDave]

Out of curiosity one day I looked up the gasoline and diesel used in the US for a year, made some round number assumptions on the engine efficiencies converting those BTU‘s to work, and then look at the kwh required to replace that work, and allowing for some efficiency increases involved in going electric (giving EV,s the same efficiency credit that hybrids have over regular cars). I compared that number to the existing annual US electric generation, and at the end of a quite involved spreadsheet came up with about a 25-30% increase in current electrical generation required to completely electrify the transport sector.

You have to watch the people making the claims of the electricity required for EV’s because they sometimes just convert the gas and diesel energy to kwh on a heat basis without considering engine efficiency and useful work done.

Thats pretty close to what engineering explained came up with.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

Should revisit when you can charge an EV in as many places and as fast as (and for same price as? Too soon?) you can gas up an ICE vehicle. I'll call it 5 minutes.

7 gallons per minute is what the pump is supposed to pump...