ICYMI: GM Plans To Go Full Electric by 2035, Carbon Neutral by 2040

STM317 said:

t321sg said:The yellow square would be sufficient:

Minus transmission losses, but yes. Anyone that says that it is impossible hasn't been keeping up with how amazingly possible it is with advances in solar, wind, storage technologies. It will be work to build that infrastructure, but it's better than building new coal/gas plants and in many places already much cheaper. The transmission and distribution infrastructure needs a boost now, so why not boost it with some future proofing in mind?

Another way to look at the infrastructure challenges is to consider the impact of shale oil and gas in the US. The scale of the efforts needed to extract and transport it is/was significant.  Also, efficient US capital markets were able to rapidly finance the changes.

Another example of a big change is the shift to cloud computing.

Plenty of countries might struggle rolling out the electrical infrastructure required to facilitate electric cars, but I have little doubt the US is up to the challenge.

In reply to Snrub :

I dunno.  The US has gone from people jining up to get shot at so they could fight off fascism in the 40s, and then shooting people to the Moon not because it's easy, but because it is hard, to "Wear a mask when I go to the store?  That's too hard, I'ma complain".

Ford stopped selling cars in the US because most Americans are too timid and scared to drive anything but a truck.  Nissan sells forty-seven different trucks and not one sporting vehicle, whereas 25 years ago there was the 200SX, the Sentra SE-R, the 240SX, the 300ZX (turbo and non), as well as the Infiniti variations.  The operational climate in the US has changed.

Ironically, the only company genuinely offering performance in the US... is Tesla.

I am morbidly pescimistic about the ability for people to come together to solve a common problem. I do think business is up to the task of selling complex/transformational ecosystems of services to consumers. There's a reason so many world beating companies and innovations come from the US. I'm not sure that GM qualifies, but many others do.

Lots of internal combustion engineers looking for work....

STM317 said:

t321sg said:

Your just moving the problem to a different point source. Its not greener if you just move the tailpipe emission to the power plant. More powerplants will be needed to meet the added electric demand. There just isn't enough land space to build windmills and solar panels to meet all the demand, and it takes decades to get permits and build them all, even if there was hundreds of thousands of unused acres waiting.

The nice thing about solar panels, is that they can be mounted to existing structures and don't necessarily need to be free standing in new places. How many parking garages, big box stores, schools, shopping malls, warehouses, etc have acres of roof space that could be repurposed?

But if we assume that we'd need these panels to be entirely located on new land, there's a whole lot of sparsely populated land in the US, and a good bit of it gets a whole lot of sunshine. With current solar panel efficiency, it would take about 21k sq miles of panels to power the entire US. The yellow square would be sufficient:

Nice "target."  Good to know that bad guys could take out the entire US power grid by hitting that square.

maj75 (Forum Supporter) said:

STM317 said:

t321sg said:

Your just moving the problem to a different point source. Its not greener if you just move the tailpipe emission to the power plant. More powerplants will be needed to meet the added electric demand. There just isn't enough land space to build windmills and solar panels to meet all the demand, and it takes decades to get permits and build them all, even if there was hundreds of thousands of unused acres waiting.

The nice thing about solar panels, is that they can be mounted to existing structures and don't necessarily need to be free standing in new places. How many parking garages, big box stores, schools, shopping malls, warehouses, etc have acres of roof space that could be repurposed?

But if we assume that we'd need these panels to be entirely located on new land, there's a whole lot of sparsely populated land in the US, and a good bit of it gets a whole lot of sunshine. With current solar panel efficiency, it would take about 21k sq miles of panels to power the entire US. The yellow square would be sufficient:

Nice "target."  Good to know that bad guys could take out the entire US power grid by hitting that square.

Wait, are you being serious or are you making a dumb joke?

maj75 (Forum Supporter) said:

Lots of internal combustion engineers looking for work....

LOL- the time that it will take for ICE's to be phased out will allow all of them to either retire or change jobs.  Engineers are very able to transfer from one form of their specialty to another.  Assuming they want to continue being engineers.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Ironically, the only company genuinely offering performance in the US... is Tesla.

You mean, aside from all the Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, Hellcat and SRT stuff, the new Cadillac "Nightwing" cars, and the various M, RS, and AMG cars from our German friends? Aside from those?

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Ironically, the only company genuinely offering performance in the US... is Tesla.

You mean, aside from all the Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, Hellcat and SRT stuff, the new Cadillac "Nightwing" cars, and the various M, RS, and AMG cars from our German friends? Aside from those?

Well, yeah, and don't get me started about the Romans.

maj75 (Forum Supporter) said:

STM317 said:

t321sg said:

Your just moving the problem to a different point source. Its not greener if you just move the tailpipe emission to the power plant. More powerplants will be needed to meet the added electric demand. There just isn't enough land space to build windmills and solar panels to meet all the demand, and it takes decades to get permits and build them all, even if there was hundreds of thousands of unused acres waiting.

The nice thing about solar panels, is that they can be mounted to existing structures and don't necessarily need to be free standing in new places. How many parking garages, big box stores, schools, shopping malls, warehouses, etc have acres of roof space that could be repurposed?

But if we assume that we'd need these panels to be entirely located on new land, there's a whole lot of sparsely populated land in the US, and a good bit of it gets a whole lot of sunshine. With current solar panel efficiency, it would take about 21k sq miles of panels to power the entire US. The yellow square would be sufficient:

Nice "target."  Good to know that bad guys could take out the entire US power grid by hitting that square.

Yeah, it's just to illustrate that solar power generation doesn't take as much area as many doubters seem to think. There are tons of obvious issues with having a single, 21k sq mile solar array that make it untenable.

That's an awfully big square to take out! 

I am not an expert on this stuff but I have been in the middle of it for a while. In the last ten years I have worked for a big utility (Pacific Gas and Electric) and an electric vehicle start-up (Lucid Motors). In addition my wife has been working in the solar and renewable energy business since the mid 2000's. Here are some interesting trends that I see that are related to the questions and problems being brought up here.

A lot of people and companies that 40 years ago would have told you there were in the "Oil and gas" business will now tell you they are in the "Energy business."  They are making significant investments in solar, wind and energy storage. Companies like Shell, Total, and Sun are positioning themselves to address the issues with electrical grid. This is not just in California. My wife is getting contacted be recruiters for companies in Texas, New York, Ontario, Massachusetts,  and Arizona.

Utilities are making investments in renewables and new technology for grid management everywhere. Companies like Duke Energy, the Southern Company, and  Arizona Power Services whose service areas are not exactly at the liberal end of the political spectrum are working on this because the costs are becoming competitive with new fossil fuel generation.

Automotive Oem's and others are working on having bidirectional power capabilities EV's. This means being able the draw power from an EV back into the grid. this will be of interest to fleet owners because if you have a fleet that is parked at particular times you could potentially earn some extra money or reduce your cost by using the storage capacity of your vehicles to help stabilize the grid.

Automotive OEM's are tightening up on how accessible and hackable the systems in their vehicles are. This not because they are specifically trying to ruin our fun or run independent shops out of business but because autonomous operation is coming. People are not going to jump in to buy or use an autonomous vehicle if they think a hostile government, criminal gang or crazy ex can take it over easily to do you harm.

Just some observations. 

Did they outline a plan for expired battery packs and more environmentally friend mining process for the elements needed to create the batteries? 

Did they outline a plan to aid in making the existing power infrastructure more robust for the increase in electric vehicles being added to the road? 

DirtyBird222 said:

Did they outline a plan to aid in making the existing power infrastructure more robust for the increase in electric vehicles being added to the road? 

If you (most people) charge off peak this is a complete non issue (for the utility). Expect time of day or demand charges to drive the correct behavior, which is already happening in many places.

Type Q said:

A lot of people and companies that 40 years ago would have told you there were in the "Oil and gas" business will now tell you they are in the "Energy business."  They are making significant investments in solar, wind and energy storage. Companies like Shell, Total, and Sun are positioning themselves to address the issues with electrical grid. This is not just in California. My wife is getting contacted be recruiters for companies in Texas, New York, Ontario, Massachusetts,  and Arizona.

Utilities are making investments in renewables and new technology for grid management everywhere. Companies like Duke Energy, the Southern Company, and  Arizona Power Services whose service areas are not exactly at the liberal end of the political spectrum are working on this because the costs are becoming competitive with new fossil fuel generation.

This is good news for moving fwd. And thanks for some non emotionally charged info.

I have not worked in the power generation field for several years now, but as a traveling contractor, the last solar or wind contract I was offered paid about 1/4th of what other worked paid to do the same thing. As current administration pushes to shut down oil and gas, I have heard it said that all the folks it puts out of work, can just work solar... Uh, only if the can survine a 1/4 cut in wages. Hopefully that will start to change as well.

I think the O&G to not jobs transitions will depend on your personal skillset and what else you can offer. Bolting together solar panel structure in a field is very different than working on a drilling rig or in rig support for sure, and should be paid appropriately. Figure the O&G companies can pay more because they get the free labor of millions of years of decomposition to feed their product, they can have better pay and still plenty of money for executive bonuses. 

Likely some of the new energy storage installations will be more complex/better pay than just straight solar, not sure on wind but likely better pay as well as they are more complicated. Will be very regional specific I would think. A jobs bridge really needs to be thought about if the goal of broad decarbonization is real.