Like a fever trying to kill off an infection.
People blocking charging stations.
- Thread starter Chris142
- Start date
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
We did. It turned out that Ontarians had far lower tolerance for this nonsense than Cali or Germany. The GEA was modelled after Energiewende after all, which was still being pushed as this groundbreaking and effective "solution". Despite there being numerous red flags, Ontario politicians totally bought the propaganda and loved the fact they could offload the cost directly onto ratepayers without adding to government debt. It had favourable optics on both the virtue signalling and financial fronts (from a government books perspective) but the lie that it would add no cost to bills lit a fire that smouldered until the powder keg exploded and the fallout was severe.
But still, we have the OCAA that, despite all this, managed to convince numerous municipalities that we could just phase-out gas generation using the same bovine excrement about "efficiencies" and mythical Quebec imports of capacity that doesn't exist, so it would seem that many politicians are still gleefully willing to abandon the idea of exercising critical thought if the optics look favourable.
Charging stations are all over the place, mostly in shopping center and mall parking lots. Is Starbucks private property? I don't know. Walmart? Kaiser hospitals? I have never seen street charging. So I really don't know. But I do think blocking charging stations is a stupid thing to do. By the way, our police officers have enough to do; policing charging stations would likely be a low priority.
Agree; I never said "recommended" had legal repercussions. But these recommendations are good information for people, right? I would hope we follow recommendations for all the electricity use during these high heat times. Some will; others will not.
I agree with most of what you said, however once something becomes a law, like or not you have to obey it or suffer the consequences. Me I hope I'm never forced into owning an EV, but I'm not going to walk if an EV is my only choice.
PG&E has a monopoly in much of CA.
I like your statement, "many believe that the solution is simply doubling-down on what got us here." My question is, what got us here?
That's easy to answer: the increased supply needed is well within the traditional increase in electric demand.
It's easy to forget that electric demand rapidly increased with the addition of electric lighting, electric appliances, air conditioning, and increased electric heating. Many areas that were previously marginal became livable because of electric HVAC and electric water pumps. It's only recently that electric demand plateaued.
Solar PV panel and wind power has been the main supply addition to the grid, and that can at least triple before hitting diminishing returns. Critics say "but what about at night or if the wind isn't blowing", while EV drivers are saying that they will be happy to charge any time it is cheaper to do so.
I doubt that many people are knowingly charging their EVs during a flex alert unless they have an immediate need. There are likely far more that haven't changed their A/C habits, or even turned down the setpoint temperature. A bigger group is using more power without realizing it. I know my wife immediate goes to "it's too hot to do anything outside, so I'll stay inside and cook" and has to be reminded about why that is counter-productive.
That’s like saying, “we can’t balance our household spending because you don’t have enough income. My overspending has nothing to do with it. We have a money supply problem.”
When, quite honestly, there is a demand problem as well as a pre-existing supply problem.
Increasing demand in a supply constrained situation is no better than increasing spending when the budget won’t balance, and that spending (or demand, in this case) increase is absolutely part of the problem.
Charging an EV during peak power demand contributes to the demand just like any other contributer.
But blaming EVs as the cause of CA's energy and temperature problems is a pretty silly arguement.
I would hope that we Californians follow the recommendations for the immeadiate heat wave and work on long term solutions going forward.
But blaming EVs as the cause of CA's energy and temperature problems is a pretty silly arguement.
I would hope that we Californians follow the recommendations for the immeadiate heat wave and work on long term solutions going forward.
Jeff, please, if you don't think voters are in control of your power production I would call that very naive anymore than your not in control of the banning of ICE vehicles.
No politics allowed in here and I think I am avoiding the subject, the voters are in control, your CPUC sets rates, your CPUC determines who, what, how and the cost of electricity in your state. Come on, please, voters are the reason for an old outdated system, strangled by "the people"
The most populated state in the country doesnt even have a nuclear power plant, demanding wind and solar take its place.
Yeah, you got one plant that was supposed to close down but poor planing again by the voters in the 11th hour they decided they cant shut that plant down as you dont have enough power as it is.
I wonder what will happen when the Hoover Dam output keeps falling and its down by about 1/3 now right?
"In 1998, a change in the regulation of California's public utilities, including PG&E, began. The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) set the rates that PG&E could charge customers and required them to provide as much power as the customers wanted at rates set by the CPUC."
2001 = "delays in approval of new power plants" (who do you think that was?)
The state sets the rates, nearly drove them into bankruptcy in 2019. Lets face it, the utility hands are and always will be tied in CA, then when power lines fall, and forest fires start, those regulating government bodies will blame the company that they drive to near bankruptcy by not letting them charge the rates they should.
(hope you know I am just discussing, but you cant blame the power company when government tells them what they can and cant do and what they can charge)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Company
No, of course your not going to walk. The majority in your state will decide if they ban ICE or not.
Geography and climate are the primary reasons why stuff like this comes out of California.
The state itself is the 5th largest economy in the world.
It was developed around the automobile.
Topography causes a lot of problems with regards to air pollution.
While the climate is mixed the majority of people reside in areas which are dry (Mediterranean/Desert). Water is worth more than gold and much of it as well as power come from out of state (Hoover ****, Colorado River).
It's a drier version of Portugal.
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You want , um... "people"... to abandon their cult loyalties and simply do the best for society without participating in hypocritical finger pointing and arguing perspectives they have practically no firsthand experience with?
Yep, with any luck I'll be living in another state long before NYS citizens have the chance to decide.
I agree with you on the above.
However singling out EVs for electricity issues would be similar to singling out a car payment as the cause of financial issues in your above example and ignoring other spending habits.
I think we can agree that there are many, many different users that need electricity, not just EV owners. And CA has had this problem since the year 2000, way before EVs. Now EVs do contribute just as any other electrical load would. By how much? It’s hard to tell.
My main point was to not focus on one group of users or another, where the underlying issues is with production and regulation. That should be the main focus of discussion if CA wants to improve their power grid. Not blaming users for this problem.
Of course, it’s a crisis and everyone should do their best to conserve.
And I also agree that as more and more EVs are adopted, this problem will be even worse, there is no denying that.
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The CPUC sucks too. For example:
"After PG&E committed the felony manslaughter of 84 people by starting the 2018 Camp Fire through criminally reckless operation of its power grid, the CPUC played a key role in approving PG&E’s plan to exit bankruptcy and waived a $200 million fine for PG&E’s safety violations."
Lotsa blame to go around.
You guys should start demanding reliable electricity production, similar to what people in Ontario Canada did and stop going with “California has lots of sun, so solar makes sense”. It only makes sense as a supplementary source of power, not a main one, like CA has invisioned.
Blaming has no productive effects.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Retiring capacity without replacement is one of the biggest issues, and this is driven by politicians being pushed/leveraged by large, popular, environmental organizations. But their success is the result of people not questioning what is being presented. On the other hand, the politicians are obligated to understand what they are meddling with but far too many of them don't, or don't care, because it's all about getting re-elected and continuing the feast at that trough, figuring they will be out of office before "it" hits the fan.
This has become a problem everywhere. The focus, for politicians becomes their career and the next election cycle, so decisions are made within that context, not the necessarily long horizon required for huge civil engineering projects like the grid for example.
Of course those are private property
Thanks @OVERKILL. Certainly true regarding the supply side.
I humbly suggest the increasing energy demand due to something is a key contributer. We are like a dog chasing our tail.
An ounce of prevention...
Thanks, makes sense. I just don't know how you enforce bad behavior. Our good Police are already overworked and haters gonna hate.
