Gas lighting by the conservative media over the collapse of the electric grid by too many electric vehicles debunked

 

Earlier this month Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, made a little quip statement about owning an electric vehicle to a reporter. His question was, "Obviously, we have the acute issues with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.  But looking more holistically in a macro view, how does this speed up the efforts at DOE to move in more of a renewable direction since this is going to have an impact on people at the pump?"

Her response was, "Yeah, I mean, we obviously are 'all in' on making sure that we meet the President’s goals of getting to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly."

I honestly do not see the connection between a gas shortage and the development of a green energy infrastructure. But, that aside, I was not surprised that the conservative media immediately put forward their argument against electrifying all vehicles. So I would like to present a counter argument to their arguments against electrifying all vehicles. There arguments were:

1. Not everybody can afford to buy a new electric vehicle. No argument there but many used electric vehicles are available at reasonable prices. Since no one expects the transition to occur overnight both the price of new electric vehicles will come down as more are sold and more used ones will come on the market.

2. What happens to all the gas vehicles? Well I guess the same thing that happened to the horse and buggy. I would hope the old gas powered cars would be recycled.

3. If everybody was driving an electric vehicle when they returned home and began to charge their batteries the electric grid would be brought down because it could not handle the load.

Of course that assumes the transition occurs so quickly that our electric utilities are caught with their pants down!  It also assumes that everyone will plug their EV in at the same time and will use electricity from the electric grid. Let’s look at the circumstance where everyone is using electricity from the grid. In this case we need to know when the grid is under the most demand and when it has the least demand. Since most of our activity requiring electricity goes on during daylight hours its only natural that we find electric load highest during daylight and the load lowest during nighttime hours.

Since there is often an excess of electricity available during the overnight hours, utilities almost always offer a lower rate for the electricity used during that time. So at the very least, if a portion of the EV owners choose to take advantage of the lower rate and did their charging overnight that would certainly help reduce the daytime electric demand.

The other assumption made by the critics is that everyone needs to completely charge their EV everyday. Almost all EV’s have an effective range of at least 150 miles. The average round trip for the vast majority of people is 30 miles. Many may choose to not charge their vehicle everyday. This would avoid spikes in demand and actually make it easier to manage the grid.

Now let’s look at an alternate method of charging an EV, how about combining EV usage and home installed solar panels. Because of the decreasing cost of producing solar panels, and the tax rebates given for installing solar panels, more and more homes are getting some of their electricity from their own electric source. Again, if a portion of EVs could be charged during daylight hours at homes with solar panels this would prevent a spike in demand. If the solar system included batteries, the EV could be charged anytime from the batteries and not place any demand on the grid.

To say that we should not move to all electric vehicle because there would not be sufficient electric capacity to meet demand and the system would collapse, flies in the face of reality. Demand has been increasing and the capitalist system has always managed to keep up with demand. The Biden administration’s actions to upgrade the electric grid further stabilizes the system. If you can afford an electric vehicle, I hope you'll buy one. It is one of the best ways to reduce the amount of Greenhouse Gas from fossil fuels going into the atmosphere. And that is what we need to do to fight the Climate Crisis.

References

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, May 11, 2021 | The White House

 US DOT 2003 - From Home to Work, the Average Commute is 26.4 Minutes. (nrc.gov)