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Post by Blitz on Nov 13, 2023 9:00:21 GMT -5
As NYC’s fleet of electric Uber, Lyft and Revel cars grows, fears rise charging network won’t meet demand Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News - Sun, November 12, 2023 news.yahoo.com/nyc-fleet-electric-uber-lyft-123000055.htmlAs New York’s fleet of Uber, Lyft and other for-hire vehicles moves toward a zero-emission mandate by 2030, concerns are growing that the number of car charging stations popping up across the five boroughs won’t be enough to meet driver demand. The problem may become more acute as the city Taxi and Limousine Commission eliminates its limit on the number of electric vehicles that operate as app-based rideshares. Of the 78,000 cars currently authorized by TLC as app-based rideshares, roughly 2,200 are electric vehicles, TLC data shows. The TLC expects the fleet to be 25% electrified by the end of 2026. If that happens, roughly 19,500 electric for-hire vehicles will be on the street. All of them will be hungry for scarce electric chargers, say researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. “[T]he existing charging network in New York City is not adequate even in the most optimistic scenario,” researchers with the two agencies said in an April 2022 study. “lthough charging is demanded in areas nearby high trip demand, fast charging ports are also demanded in areas near driver residences as a supplement for home charging in scenarios with limited overnight charging access,” the study says. By the time the electric for-hire fleet hits 21,000 cars — a benchmark the TLC hopes to achieve by 2027 — the city will need more than 1,000 direct-current “fast chargers” capable of topping up a car’s battery in 20 minutes to an hour would be required citywide, the study says. That’s a lot more than the number of fast chargers now available. The city currently has 187 direct-current fast chargers, distributed among 38 charging stations citywide, according to state government data. The bulk of the fast chargers are in Brooklyn, which has 68 charging ports at six locations, and Queens, which has 65 ports across 16 locations. Manhattan has 27 fast-charging ports at 11 stations. On Staten Island, 15 fast-charging ports are distributed across four stations. The Bronx has just one fast-charging station — a Tesla Supercharger facility at the Bay Plaza Mall, which consists of a dozen charging ports. Drivers may also use dslower-charging “Level 2” plugs, which require a 240-volt residential or 208-volt commercial outlet. Level 2 charges can bring a car to an 80% charge level overnight or during the course of a workday. The city currently has 1,960 of the slower-charging Level 2 ports, spread across 634 stations. More than half of those are in Manhattan, where fewer than 10% of Uber and Lyft drivers live. Electric vehicles also can be charged using alternating current from a normal 120 volt electrical outlet. Fully charging a vehicle with such an outlet — known as “Level 1” charging — can take more than a day. As things currently stand, only about 15% of the city’s Uber, Lyft and other for-hire cars can be charged overnight, the researchers say. An overnight charge is adequate for Brooklyn-based Uber driver Lazizjon Negmatullaev. “On a typical day, can drive the whole day without worrying about charging,” Negmatullaev told the Daily News. Negmatullaev, who made the shift to an electric vehicle last month with a new TLC plate, said he’s able to drive without worry because he charges his Tesla Model Y between shifts — overnight at a parking spot he owns near his apartment. But most drivers — who park their cars on city streets overnight — lack Negmatullaev’s easy access to even a slow charger. “The problem is drivers tend to live where there isn’t overnight charging,” said Bruce Schaller, a traffic and transit consultant and former deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Transportation. “In most of the country, people have a garage and a driveway — obviously not in New York.” Schaller proposed expanding the city’s network of slower Level 2 chargers to spaces like retail parking lots, where drivers can reliably find overnight parking. “The thing about the outer boroughs is there is a lot [potential] overnight parking at grocery stores and that sort of thing,” he said. “To me, that’s kind of the model.” Revel, the company first known for its outgoing fleet of rental e-mopeds, has been operating for-hire electric cars since 2021. The firm also operates three large fast-charging hubs in the five boroughs. Revel’s Long Island City charging station — which includes 14 fast chargers — opened earlier this month. “Finding an available site that can support this kind of infrastructure is tough,” Haley Rubinson, Revel’s vice president of corporate affairs, told The News. “It’s not just like, any open lot, we take out a lease and there you go. There’s a limited amount of real estate with available power or the ability to easily bring power over.” “That doesn’t make building on sites impossible, but it makes it difficult and time consuming,” she said. Revel officials say they plan to open 300 more DC fast chargers in New York before 2025. Meanwhile, the fast chargers at some popular destinations are already getting crowded. At Kennedy Airport, “you can be waiting an hour or two [for a plug],” Negmatullaev said, referring to the dozen fast-charge Tesla plugs near the airport, a major destination for Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers. “You can wait two to three hours just to charge your car and be on your way.”
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Post by Blitz on Nov 14, 2023 11:36:01 GMT -5
Offshore wind reaches crossroads, as spiraling costs and supply chain issues force developers to reassess projects – EY research 14 Nov 2023 www.energy-pedia.com/news/general/offshore-wind-reaches-crossroads--as-spiraling-costs-and-supply-chain-issues-force-developers-to-reassess-projects-%E2%80%93-ey-research-193255- UK concedes poll position for offshore wind investment, falling three places in the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index - Nordic countries emerge as notable climbers on the Index - Japan and Chile fall in the rankings, overshadowed by deployment challenges Turbulent times in the offshore wind sector could change the way large-scale energy projects are built and funded in the future, according to the latest EY Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI). Offshore wind is crucial to achieving net zero, but has experienced a difficult 12 months, challenged by a squeezed supply chain and escalating costs. Global project costs have risen by 39% since 2019 and the next decade could see cost inflation adding around US$280b in capital expenditure for the sector. Against this backdrop, around 80% of the 15 markets with offshore wind targets for 2030 are predicted to miss their stated goals. Not least, the UK has conceded its lead position as the most attractive country to host offshore wind projects, falling three places to 7th position on the Index overall. In September 2023, the maximum strike price of £44 (US$54) per megawatt hour for offshore wind in the UK’s fifth allocation round (AR5) was not sufficient to entice developers to bid. This represents a huge setback in the UK’s goal of reaching 50GW of offshore capacity by 2030. Arnaud de Giovanni, EY Global Renewables Leader, says: 'The offshore wind sector has reached an inflection point at a time when the climate emergency is demanding urgent investment to meet global net zero targets. For offshore wind to fulfill its role in global decarbonization, it is necessary to mitigate risks that are beyond the control of developers, guaranteeing them a reasonable return on their investments. Tensions in the offshore supply chain could be alleviated by standardizing technologies, offering greater certainty to manufacturers and developers. And governments need to devise strategies that simplify and expedite the consenting process, minimizing risks between the issue of offtake agreements and final investment decisions.' Ben Warren, EY Renewables Corporate Finance and RECAI Chief Editor, says: 'The UK's recent challenges in the offshore wind sector echo a broader, global struggle. When auctioning contracts for offshore wind generation, governments need to reflect economic conditions in the design of the auction. Considering moving away from cost-only auction formats and incorporating factors other than cost, such as environmental considerations and jobs creation, would boost the supply chain, improve deliverability and benefit wider society.' Nordic countries climb the Index; Japan and Chile fall in the rankings The top three RECAI markets remain unchanged. The US retains 1st position, fuelled by significant solar growth as a result of incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act. Germany remains in 2nd position, having experienced substantial growth in its onshore wind sector; new capacities installed by the end of September surpass the total installed in 2022. And despite halting national-level subsidies, China continues its upward trajectory in offshore wind, maintaining its overall 3rd position. The Nordic countries continue to pursue their renewable energy ambitions, with Denmark, Sweden, and Norway climbing two, three, and five places respectively. Japan slips three places to 13th position. Despite abundant natural resources and a commitment to reduce fossil fuels, it is falling behind other leading economies in terms of solar and wind deployment. Similarly, Chile drops two spots to 16th position. Notwithstanding new battery storage targets, Chile continues to struggle with intermittency issues due to solar curtailment across the country. Page 3 To view the RECAI Top 40 in full, the normalized RECAI ranking and the corporate power purchase agreement index, as well as analysis of the latest renewable energy developments across the world, visit ey.com/recai. Source: EY Global Renewables
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Post by bjspokanimal on Nov 14, 2023 20:02:36 GMT -5
Washington State's permanent Democrat rulers have dramatically raised fuel taxes in the last few years in an effort to exert enough financial pain on drivers to practically force them to consider expensive EVs over expensive fuel for their ICE vehicles. They've banned almost everything else enjoyed by citizens that even remotely contribute to pollution so it was easy for them to jack up fuel prices to rival those of California's highest-in-the-country fuel prices. I'm aware of people who take portable fuel cans to fill whenever they have reason to visit Idaho when traveling east from Spokane. If the day ever comes that I sell my principal residence in the Spokane area, it has already been decided that we will leave Washington State and move to Coeur d' Alene Idaho. Anyone who is familiar with Washington State congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is familiar with the magnitude of Socialism from similar State politicians that constantly drag Washington state down from the economic prosperity that it could otherwise achieve.
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Post by Blitz on Nov 14, 2023 21:14:50 GMT -5
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho is a beautiful area. I stopped there this Spring. I especially liked the area around the big lake. A Navy/American Airline pilot friend of mine living in Miami Beach now, still owns a big bar there called The Beacon.
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Post by endtaxloopholes on Nov 14, 2023 22:33:06 GMT -5
Washington State's permanent Democrat rulers have dramatically raised fuel taxes in the last few years in an effort to exert enough financial pain on drivers to practically force them to consider expensive EVs over expensive fuel for their ICE vehicles. They've banned almost everything else enjoyed by citizens that even remotely contribute to pollution so it was easy for them to jack up fuel prices to rival those of California's highest-in-the-country fuel prices. I'm aware of people who take portable fuel cans to fill whenever they have reason to visit Idaho when traveling east from Spokane. If the day ever comes that I sell my principal residence in the Spokane area, it has already been decided that we will leave Washington State and move to Coeur d' Alene Idaho. Anyone who is familiar with Washington State congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is familiar with the magnitude of Socialism from similar State politicians that constantly drag Washington state down from the economic prosperity that it could otherwise achieve. it’s me KingRig, or maybe republicans and dems needs to end tax loopholes and go after tax cheaters so the states don’t need to come up with other tax ideas to raise much needed revenue
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Post by nickz34 on Nov 14, 2023 23:33:42 GMT -5
I went to school in Spokane at Gonzaga, and I absolutely fell in love not just with Coeur d’Alene, but Priest Lake and Lake Pend Oreille up near Sandpoint. Absolutely beautiful area and one I’m considering retiring to.
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Post by Blitz on Nov 17, 2023 7:50:17 GMT -5
Has the Energy Transition Hit a Wall? By Irina Slav - Nov 16, 2023, 7:00 PM CST oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Has-the-Energy-Transition-Hit-a-Wall.html- Wind and solar stocks are declining due to higher costs of raw materials and slow supply response. - EV chargers and copper mining, critical for the energy transition, face demand uncertainties and reluctance in investment. - Despite government subsidies, renewable energy sectors struggle with high costs and interest rates, indicating a slower and more expensive transition than anticipated. Wind power stocks are tanking. So are solar power stocks. Germany’s government just agreed to underwrite a 15-billion-euro bailout for Siemens Energy after its wind power subsidiary booked massive losses. The list could continue. The movers and shakers in the energy space are finding it increasingly hard to move and shake. It was easy to anticipate this development, yet, many choose to ignore the signs, and now the sector may suffer more before the growing pains ease. One common theme in the wind, solar, and EV space is the theme of rising costs. This was perhaps the easiest development to anticipate in the progress of the energy transition. After all, everyone was forecasting a massive surge in the demand for various raw materials and technology to enable that transition. There is one guaranteed thing that happens when demand for something rises: prices also rise before the supply response kicks in. This is a universal truth for all industries and there was no reason to expect that the transition industry would be an exception. Indeed, demand for raw materials necessary for solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries rose, but supply was slow to catch up, which led to higher prices. For a while, many pretended this was not the case, possibly hoping the cost inflation would blow over before investors noticed it. Denmark’s Orsted, which suffered some of the worst market cap losses in the transition space, just this June published an upbeat outlook for the year and the medium term, expecting strong capacity additions growth and a return on capital employed rate of an average 14% for the period 2023 to 2030. The same month the head of the company complained loudly about the rising costs of building offshore wind in Britain and asked for more subsidies. Five months later, Orsted had booked $4 billion in impairment charges from its U.S. business and had canceled two offshore projects there. CEO Mads Nipper called the situation in wind power “a perfect storm”. Many have blamed the higher costs on the legacy of the pandemic lockdowns—broken supply chains, delays, and other obstacles to the smooth movement of goods and materials. Yet when it comes to the transition, the current state of affairs is more likely part of the same vicious circle that is holding back the EV revolution that fans of Tesla keep predicting. This circle is best illustrated in the case of EV chargers. Since range anxiety is one of the biggest concerns of prospective buyers, there must be enough chargers for this anxiety to subside. But charger companies wouldn’t build chargers unless they are certain there will be enough EVs on the roads to make these chargers profitable. The situation is similar in copper mining—perhaps the most fundamental industry for the energy transition. After all, the transition is conceived of as a shift to almost full electrification and you cannot have electrification without a lot of copper. Instead, copper miners are reluctant to splurge on new exploration. Miners don’t have enough certainty about future demand, despite all the upbeat forecasts. Whatever market prices show, if the transition gains momentum as planned, the copper shortage will only be a matter of time. Another obstacle is demand. There seemed to be an assumption among transition planners that demand would be given; but it hasn’t been. EV makers now find themselves revising their plans as demand falls short of targets. In June, forecasts for Germany were that demand for solar installations would surge by double digits in 2023. Two months later, an inverter maker warned that demand had actually dropped in the third quarter, and the outlook for Q4 was not particularly encouraging. In wind, projects are being canceled because project leaders are asking for much higher prices than previously agreed with funding governments. Many are blaming higher interest rates for the cost inflation that sank their shares. But interest rates are something that all industries have to deal with, and those other industries don’t have the privilege of counting on generous government subsidies. Yet wind, solar, and EVs can’t take off even with those subsidies. This puts the future of the transition in a new perspective: something that many observers foresaw but were dismissed as climate deniers. The transition will be neither as fast nor as smooth—or as cheap—as initially expected. It will take a long time; it will be uneven, and it will be expensive. “There’s this notion that it is going to be a linear energy transition,” Daniel Yergin, S&P Global vice chairman and a veteran energy chronicler, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s going to unfold in different ways in different parts of the world.” By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Nov 20, 2023 7:32:54 GMT -5
There's no current leadership that's capable of upgrading the USA's grid to enable the infrastructure required to meet ESG fantasy timelines related to eliminating ICE vehicles and meeting renewable energy goals by 2030 - 2035. The upgrades need be done very systematically as renewables become practicable rather than wasting trillions of dollars on a disjointed, incoherent, and, unobtainable timeline. And now this... National Grid Launches Massive $52 Billion Infrastructure Overhaul By Felicity Bradstock - Nov 19, 2023, 10:00 AM CST oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/National-Grid-Launches-Massive-52-Billion-Infrastructure-Overhaul.html- National Grid's investment targets a significant backlog of renewable energy projects awaiting grid connection in the U.K., with a push for fundamental reforms in electricity network planning. - In the U.S., the fragmented and outdated energy infrastructure requires a comprehensive overhaul to support the growing renewable energy capacity. - National Grid's initiatives include offering 'amnesty deals' to energy developers and working with regulators to allow developers to build their own grid connections, aiming to reduce backlogs and encourage green energy investments. Excerpt: Both the U.K. and the U.S. are struggling to upgrade their grid systems in line with the acceleration of the renewable energy capacity in each country. Several energy experts suggest that most U.S. energy infrastructure requires a complete overhaul following decades of neglect and complicated divisions across state and regional lines. Due to the widescale fragmentation of the U.S. transmission line network, many energy companies have been at a stalemate when it comes to upgrades. It is useless to make improvements to the energy network in one state if the neighboring state refuses to make improvements on its side, meaning that many of the country’s transition lines have been long neglected. In the U.K., achieving the government’s aim of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require a transformation of the country’s grid system on a scale that has been seen since the 1960s, according to an analysis by Regen Power. Upgrading the grid will allow millions of households to install heat pumps and EV chargers, as well as encourage greater investment in the clean energy sector. Yet, in 2022, Ofgem cut the budget for grid investment proposed by network operators by 17 percent, a move that Regen believes is highly risky.
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Post by Blitz on Nov 20, 2023 11:24:02 GMT -5
Here's the ESG wonks definition of 'Sustainable Energy' ... Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenhouse gas emissions and social and economic aspects such as energy poverty. This well researched verbiage below, clearly shows making EVs is not sustainable. It also shows current sustainable energy makers are not sustainable. - Among the material realities of green energy: Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.
- A single electric car contains more cobalt than 1,000 smartphone batteries; the blades on a single wind turbine have more plastic than 5 million smartphones; and a solar array that can power one data center uses more glass than 50 million phones.
- Replacing hydrocarbons with green machines under current plans—never mind aspirations for far greater expansion—will vastly increase the mining of various critical minerals around the world. For example, a single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.
- Oil, natural gas, and coal are needed to produce the concrete, steel, plastics, and purified minerals used to build green machines. The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil. By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades.
- By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.
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About the author:
Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he co-directs an Institute on Manufacturing Science and Innovation. He is also a strategic partner with Cottonwood Venture Partners (an energy-tech venture fund). Previously, Mills cofounded Digital Power Capital, a boutique venture fund, and was chairman and CTO of ICx Technologies, helping take it public in 2007. Mills is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and is author of Digital Cathedrals (2020) and Work in the Age of Robots (2018). He is also coauthor of The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005). His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Real Clear. Mills has appeared as a guest on CNN, Fox, NBC, PBS, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2016, Mills was named “Energy Writer of the Year” by the American Energy Society. Earlier, Mills was a technology advisor for Bank of America Securities and coauthor of the Huber-Mills Digital Power Report, a tech investment newsletter. He has testified before Congress and briefed numerous state public-service commissions and legislators. Mills served in the White House Science Office under President Reagan and subsequently provided science and technology policy counsel to numerous private-sector firms, the Department of Energy, and U.S. research laboratories. Early in his career, Mills was an experimental physicist and development engineer at Bell Northern Research (Canada’s Bell Labs) and at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center on microprocessors, fiber optics, missile guidance, earning several patents for his work. He holds a degree in physics from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada
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Post by Blitz on Nov 22, 2023 16:05:06 GMT -5
European Utility Giant Turns More Selective On Renewables Spending By Charles Kennedy - Nov 22, 2023, 1:30 PM CST oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/European-Utility-Giant-Turns-More-Selective-On-Renewables-Spending.htmlItalian utility giant Enel, one of Europe’s largest, is becoming more cautious in its investments in renewables and will be more selective in spending on clean energy amid high interest rates and rising costs. Enel unveiled on Wednesday a new strategic plan for 2024 through 2026, which new chief executive Flavio Cattaneo said would focus on profitability, flexibility, and resilience. In 2020, the previous CEO of the Italian utility giant said the group plans to invest as much as US$174 billion (160 billion euros) by 2030 in boosting renewable power generation, decarbonization, and grid infrastructure as part of a new plan to become a “Super Major” in renewables. In the new plan, Enel plans to focus its investments in Europe mainly in grids, according to the new plan announced today. Nearly half of the gross capex, or 49%, will go to investments in Italy, 25% of capex is planned for Spain and Portugal, 19% for Latin America, and 7% for North America. The investment in North America will go to “leveraging on the partnership model as well as on cash generation guaranteed by the improvement of profitability of the existing portfolio, in order to fund the development of renewables,” Enel said. The group confirmed six core countries where it would focus its investments – Italy, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and the United States. While the core areas remain the same, Enel will be more cautious and selective on investment opportunities in renewables. Investment decisions in the renewables sector will be more selective, diversifying technologies and countries, improving returns and reducing risks, also leveraging on partnerships. “In the next three years, we will adopt a more selective approach towards investments in order to maximize profitability while minimizing risks,” CEO Cattaneo said. “Financial discipline will be the cornerstone of our Strategy, boosting cash generation and efficiencies, with sustainability continuing to guide our business decisions.” By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com //////////////////////////////////////// Politicians Waking up to Higher-cost Offshore Wind Power, Equinor Says brazilenergyinsight.com/2023/11/22/politicians-waking-up-to-higher-cost-offshore-wind-power-equinor-says/ (Reuters) Recent decisions in the United States and Britain to accept higher prices for offshore wind developments are a welcome sign that authorities are adjusting to higher costs in the industry, Equinor’s head or renewables said on Tuesday. “I believe that politics and markets will adjust, and that is also necessary in order to keep up the pace of offshore wind developments,” Paal Eitrheim told Reuters on the sideline of the Norwegian company’s autumn conference in Oslo. The offshore wind industry has found itself in a perfect storm of rising inflation, interest rate hikes and supply chain bottlenecks, in some cases leading to project cancellations as support schemes failed to adjust. Earlier this year, Equinor and partner BP unsuccessfully petitioned for an average 54% increase to previously agreed power sales terms for three New York projects with a combined capacity of 3,300 megawatts (MW). Since then, a third offshore wind auction in New York cleared at rates above those of Equinor and BP’s current deals, and the state, which aims for 9,000 MW of offshore capacity in 2035, announced a new tender also open to previously awarded projects. “I think it is encouraging to see that the New York 3 awards have been made on a price level that are closer to the cost level in this industry now,” Eitrheim said, but added Equinor had not decided yet on whether to re-bid projects in the new auction. Similarly, Britain has adjusted the price for next year’s renewables auction higher by 66%, after failing to attract offshore wind bids in the previous round. Equinor is considering extensions to existing offshore wind farms in Britain that could qualify for auctions in future, and Eitrheim defended higher prices in the near term after over a decade of cost reductions. “Although it’s dramatic right now, I think, as we are building this supply chain, we are going to come back to a price level for offshore wind that is competitive for governments, for companies and also consumers.”
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Post by Blitz on Dec 6, 2023 8:39:47 GMT -5
Europe’s EV Boom Faces Grid Challenges By Tsvetana Paraskova - Dec 05, 2023, 5:00 PM CST oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europes-EV-Boom-Faces-Grid-Challenges.html- Last week, the European Commission proposed an action plan to make sure “electricity grids will operate more efficiently and will be rolled out further and faster.” - Range anxiety has been one of the hurdles to a faster adoption of electric vehicles. - Toyota Europe’s chief operating officer Matt Harrison has recently said that Europe still needs work to do in charging infrastructure to reach the tipping point for significantly boosting the share of EVs. Burdensome permitting processes and the need for extra grid connections and power capacity are slowing down the installation of EV charging stations across Europe, threatening the EU’s ambition to rely on transport electrification as a pillar of its net-zero target. The EU adopted early this year legislation to make all new cars and vans registered in Europe zero-emission from 2035. The European Commission has also just proposed an action plan for grid investments across the bloc, aiming to upgrade grids, strengthen energy infrastructure, and allow faster access for renewables to the grids. Despite the EU ambitions and the EU-wide legislation, local-level regulations and requirements to have a charging point hooked up to the grid sometimes takes years, and the delays have become longer in recent years, energy companies and industry associations tell Reuters. “Although the work of installing a fast and ultra-fast charging point requires only two to three weeks of work, due to different administrative requirements in Spain, the complete process ... can last from one to two years,” Spanish energy firm Repsol told Reuters. The red tape in Germany, Europe’s largest car market, is similarly burdensome, industry sources say. EU Plan to Upgrade Electricity Grids Last week, the European Commission proposed an Action Plan to make sure “electricity grids will operate more efficiently and will be rolled out further and faster.” A total of 40% of EU distribution grids are more than 40 years old. Cross-border transmission capacity is set to double by 2030, and this will need $633 billion (584 billion euros) in investments, the Commission said. Related: European Commission To Delay EV Tariffs By Years “Networks will have to accommodate a more digitalised, decentralised and flexible system with millions of rooftop solar panels, heat pumps and local energy communities sharing their resources, more offshore renewables coming online, more electric vehicles to charge, and growing hydrogen production needs,” the EC added. Kadri Simson, the European Commissioner for Energy, said “Grids need to be an enabler, not a bottleneck in the clean energy transition. That way we can integrate the vast amounts of renewables, electric vehicles, heat pumps and electrolysers that are needed to decarbonise our economy.” In response to the plan, renewable industry associations called for urgent actions. “Serious action is needed asap to tackle the huge and growing queues of renewables that are waiting for a grid connection. The system operators in Europe need help here. Some of them have connection queues of hundreds of GW of wind and solar projects,” the WindEurope association said. Rules for More Charging Stations This summer, the European Parliament successfully negotiated that electric charging pools for cars with a minimum 400 kW output will have to be deployed at least every 60 kilometers (37 miles) along core TEN-T network routes by 2026, with the network’s power output increasing to 600 kW by 2028. For trucks and buses, charging stations have to be provided every 120 km (75 miles). These stations should be installed on half of main EU roads by 2028 and with a 1400kW to 2800 kW power output depending on the road. EU countries will also have to ensure that hydrogen refueling stations along the core TEN-T network will be deployed at least every 200 km (124 miles) by 2031. Range anxiety has been one of the hurdles to a faster adoption of electric vehicles. The EU now has the plans, but it’s up to individual member states to accelerate permitting, including for construction and access of charging stations to the grid. “The time needed for connecting the EV recharging points to the grid can indeed be seen as a barrier to accelerate the uptake of EVs and needs to be tackled,” a spokesperson for the European Commission told Reuters in an email. Municipalities are slow with permitting, while grid operators and power distributors don’t have uniform requirements for charging stations, which could delay the rollout, industry managers say. “There is a clear need for more standardization,” Stefan van Dobschuetz, vice president of BP Pulse Europe, told Reuters. BP Pulse, the EV charging business of BP, has an ambition to have more than 100,000 chargers installed worldwide by 2030 focused on ultra-fast charging. ChargeUP, the industry association, has been calling for standardization and fast deployment of charging infrastructure across Europe. The largest bottleneck charge point operators (CPOs) face across Europe today “is the amount of time it takes to establish a grid connection point, the complexity of the process to get one, and access to sufficient grid capacity,” the association says. More than 20 CPOs across Europe have signed an open letter to propose five criteria benchmarking permitting processes that would harmonize and standardize the process of getting a grid connection in Europe. Toyota Europe’s chief operating officer Matt Harrison has recently said that Europe still needs work to do in charging infrastructure to reach the tipping point for significantly boosting the share of EVs. “The enablers are not really fully there yet, so I’m not surprised we’re having a bit of a wobble,” Harrison told Bloomberg in an interview this week. “There are a lot of fundamentals that still need to be fixed before we start to move.” By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Dec 11, 2023 9:33:52 GMT -5
Have Reports of Oil’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated? By Haley Zaremba - Dec 10, 2023, 2:00 PM CST oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Have-Reports-of-Oils-Death-Been-Greatly-Exaggerated.html- The International Energy Agency predicts a terminal decline for coal, oil, and gas by 2030, challenging dominant climate narratives. - Despite the predictions, oil profits are soaring, and supermajors like Chevron and Exxon Mobil are increasing investments in fossil fuel extraction. - Contradictions have arisen at COP28, where oil-funded climate talks discuss phasing down fossil fuels, while the industry walks back emission reduction pledges, fueling the debate over the future of oil, gas, and coal. There is a great mismatch between dominant climate narratives and the reality of the global energy sector. While energy industry insiders and environmentalists alike claim that the energy industry is heavily investing in cleaner alternatives and that the death of fossil fuels is just around the corner, Big Oil’s ledgers tell a different story. “The death of the oil industry has been greatly overstated,” said Kevin Book, managing director at the consulting firm ClearView Energy. “The realities of demand and the limitations of alternatives haven't changed.” In October, The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that coal, oil, and gas are all due to begin their terminal decline earlier than previously predicted in the World Energy Outlook 2023, its flagship annual report. The report found that with just the climate and energy policies that are already in place today, demand for coal, oil, and gas are each expected to peak by 2030. This projection comes as a shock – the report marks the first time that demand for each fuel has been predicted within this decade. But reality might be a bit messier than those figures suggest. Oil profits are soaring, and many supermajors are planning to ramp up investments in future extraction of fossil fuels. The United States had a record year, and Chevron and Exxon Mobil are busily acquiring rivals with untapped reserves, indicating that they think they are none too concerned about the alleged looming threat of peak oil. It goes without saying that the world can’t ditch fossil fuels overnight, and access to affordable and reliable baseload energies will be necessary to ease the energy transition and avoid painful energy shocks. “It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living required to permanently achieve a scenario like the IEA [scenario]”, Exxon said in its reply to the IEA’s 2050 net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario, which lays out a pathway for limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But many critics feel that Big Oil is using this line of argument as an excuse and even a scare tactic to continue investing in extraction rather than in finding better energy alternatives. Indeed, instead of continuing to intensify their efforts toward meeting global climate goals, many supermajors have been walking back their previous pledges or merely failing to achieve them. Earlier this year, BP announced that it would be slashing its promise to reduce carbon emissions from its energy production by 35 to 50 percent by 2030 to just 20 to 30 percent. But while their actions speak volumes, spokespeople for the oil and gas industry continue to avow their commitment to reducing emissions and collaborating with the decarbonization movement. This contradiction is highly visible at this year’s COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Dubai’s Expo City in the United Arab Emirates in a conference venue paid for with oil wealth in the middle of one of the world’s most prominent petro-states. The UAE negotiating team has said with “cautious optimism” that it believes COP28 could result in a commitment to phasing down fossil fuels over the coming decades, an accomplishment that has proved to be impossible in previous COPs. However, no one is even suggesting that a hard date be set or that “abated” fossil fuels be challenged. “Abated” fossil fuels are a contentious topic as technologies like carbon capture are a central platform of the decarbonization plans of oil and gas companies, but are largely dismissed by environmentalists. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has dismissed such tactics as “99 percent greenwashing,” saying: “What they're trying to do is protect their established ownership of fossil assets." So is peak oil right around the corner? Or not? It seems that larger market forces are pushing oil, gas, and coal in the direction of the dodo, but it’s just as clear that there is still money to be made in their extraction. And until that changes, there will always be someone willing to drill. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Dec 12, 2023 9:24:58 GMT -5
This 'only' adds 25 years to to the USA's ESG wonks fantasy timeline for the demise of ICE vehicles and the end of oil. I've got the 'over' on this too. Don't forget China has a population of +1.4 billion people... and growing. Now they have a middle-class of over 300 million people growing. China's grids and power supply are going to be growing and growing and growing. And so will fossil fuel use. Future growth of China’s middle class The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in its recent 2023 China’s Future Consumer Report, estimates that China will add an additional 80 million people to the middle and upper classes in the period from 2022 to 2030. By this time, BCG projects, China’s middle and upper classes will account for nearly 40 percent of the total population. Moreover, more than 70 percent of these new middle-class people will come from third-tier cities or below (generally smaller provincial capitals and prefecture-level cities), indicating that lower-tier markets will see increasing consumption power in the coming decade. And now this... China’s EV Sector Will Become Self-Sufficient By 2060 By Alex Kimani - Dec 11, 2023, 7:00 PM CST www.china-briefing.com/news/china-middle-class-growth-policy-and-consumption/Nearly 6 million EVs were sold in China in 2022, good for more than 25% of all new vehicles compared with just 8.6% throughout the entire EU. Researchers have predicted that China will lead the race to EV battery recycling in the coming decades. Scientists from the University of Munster have predicted that China will be able to employ recycling to fully meet its own demand for battery lithium from 2059 onward. Back in August, environmental group Greenpeace revealed that China approved more than 50 gigawatts of new coal power in the first half of 2023 alone, and continues building coal-fired power plants at a record clip. China consumes nearly half of the world’s coal and ranks as the world’s biggest importer of oil. It’s, therefore, somewhat ironic that China has also emerged as the indisputable world leader in clean energy: China accounted for $546 billion, or nearly half, of the $1.1 trillion that flowed into the sector in 2022. China’s EV sector stands head and shoulders above its peers. Nearly 6 million EVs were sold in China in 2022, good for more than 25% of all new vehicles compared with just 8.6% throughout the entire EU. Only Norway sells a larger percentage of electric cars than China at 80%, although China outsells Norway 43:1. Of the 850,000 EVs that the EU imported last year, more than half came from China thanks to the country’s ability to churn out quality vehicles at price points the West can only dream of. For instance, the MG4, the popular fully electric hatchback launched in the UK in 2022, is made by China’s biggest carmaker, SAIC. In May, Allianz warned that Chinese-made EVs could cost European carmakers €7bn (£6bn) a year in lost profits by 2030. Given this backdrop, it comes as little surprise that researchers have predicted that China will lead the race to EV battery recycling in the coming decades. Scientists from the University of Munster have predicted that China will be able to employ recycling to fully meet its own demand for battery lithium from 2059 onwards, at least a decade ahead of the U.S. and its western allies. The researchers have predicted that China will be able to meet its demand for cobalt and nickel through recycling after 2045 and 2046, respectively. To arrive at these conclusions, the team used data from market forecasts and current research work on developments in battery production, sales and the associated demand for raw materials. Related: Oil Rig Count Sees Small Loss As WTI Recovers To $70 "The demand for raw materials could also be met much earlier by recycling as a result of a reduction in battery size and by avoiding a so-called 'second life' for batteries, for example as stationary storage units for solar power," PhD student and the study’s corresponding author Jannis Wesselkämper has said. China is currently home to some of the world’s most advanced EV battery manufacturing plants. Shenzhen-based EV company BYD is widely regarded as China’s biggest EV success story. The company set up shop in the mid-1990s as a smartphone manufacturer before switching to EVs where it applies its cutting-edge battery knowledge to make high quality yet affordable batteries. The most advanced car battery in the world is considered to be Blade, made by BYD, thanks to having some of the fastest charging times. Top EV manufacturers including Tesla Inc.(NASDAQ:TSLA) and Toyota Motors (NYSE:TM) use blade batteries in some of their models. BYD’s big success comes from its highly integrated supply chain, including control of the mining of minerals critical to battery production. BYD has developed close relationships with dozens of miners and processing companies. In April, the company struck a deal with Chile to build a $290m lithium cathode factory in the mineral-rich South American country. UBS has predicted that Chinese-controlled mines will produce almost a third of global lithium supply by 2025. That innovation has translated into bumper profits for BYD: the company has forecast profit growth of 225% for the second half of the current year, good for 10.5bn yuan. US Battery Recycling The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for new EVs but on condition that the batteries must meet new provisions aimed at strengthening the domestic supply chain. One of the provisions is that by 2027, 80% of the value of critical minerals in the EV battery must be mined, processed or recycled in North America or in countries with a free trade agreement with the United States. Starting in 2024, EVs that contain battery components or minerals from so-called “foreign entities of concern”, including China, will not be eligible for the Clean Vehicle Credit, giving local manufacturers a powerful incentive to recycle locally manufactured batteries. Currently, EV battery recycling plants in the U.S. are mostly being built in regions where EV and lithium-ion battery production sites are already located thus creating an ecosystem where the recycled material can easily be fed back into EV production lines. The U.S. currently has the capacity to recycle at least 105,150 tons of battery minerals annually, enough to produce 220,300 electric car batteries each year or about a fifth of EVs sold in the country in 2023. By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com /////////////////////////////////// Defining China’s “middle class” The middle class in China, or alternatively middle-income groups, has been defined in a number of different ways over the years. The most common definition currently seen in China is the scope set by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which defines the “middle-income group” as a typical three-person household that earns between RMB 100,000 to RMB 500,000 (approx. US$14,844 to US$74,221 in 2022) per year. An oft-quoted figure for the size of China’s middle class comes from the former Director of the NBS, Ning Jizhe, who, using the above definition, has stated that China’s middle-income group surpassed 400 million people in 2017, or 140 million households. This figure continues to be used in communications and reports from China’s state media, but no up-to-date statistics have been released directly from government institutions since then. According to the Hurun 2018 China New Middle-Class Report, there were over 33.2 million middle-class households as of August 2018. The “middle class” is defined by Hurun as “Urban residents with an annual household income of more than RMB 300,000 (approx US$42,647) in first-tier cities [Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen] and more than RMB 200,000 (approx. US$28,431) in new first-tier cities [such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Xi’an, Suzhou, and Tianjin] and other cities.”
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Post by Blitz on Dec 12, 2023 9:30:04 GMT -5
COP28 Headed for ‘Complete Failure’ as Fossil Fuel Debate Rages By Tsvetana Paraskova - Dec 12, 2023, 7:24 AM CST oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/COP28-Headed-for-Complete-Failure-as-Fossil-Fuel-Debate-Rages.htmlThe COP28 climate summit extended overtime on Tuesday as nations continue to disagree on wording about the use and production of fossil fuels, with former Western officials suggesting that the Dubai conference is on “the verge of complete failure”. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said that “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure.” “The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word,” Gore added in an X post. A draft final statement on Monday, which referenced only suggestions about “Reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels” angered many developed nations and island nations for not including any “phase out of fossil fuels” language. The draft was put forward by the COP28 President, Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of national oil company ADNOC. This draft says that the Conference of the Parties “calls upon Parties to take actions that could include”, among other things, “Reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science.” The draft also includes the texts, “Rapidly phasing down unabated coal and limitations on permitting new and unabated coal power generation” and “Phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible.” Chances of a compromise looked slim early on Tuesday after the U.S., the EU, the UK, Australia, and a group of island nations most severely hit by climate change said they refuse to sign a document that doesn’t mention a phase-out of fossil fuels. Delegates from small island nations said they would not endorse an agreement that would be a “death warrant” for the countries worst hit by climate change. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Dec 12, 2023 17:00:27 GMT -5
I have pointing out that the ESG woke emperor has no clothes with fact based data for a long time... here's more proof. And now this... Ford slashes F-150 Lightning EV production, says it's matching customer demand Yet the Lightning set a monthly sales record in November YAHOO FINANCE - Dec 12th 2023 at 3:02PM www.autoblog.com/2023/12/12/ford-slashes-f-150-lightning-ev-production-says-its-matching-customer-demand/The next domino to fall in Ford’s evolving electric vehicle game plan? The slowdown in production plans for the F-150 Lightning EV pickup. As recently as June of this year, Ford was targeting annual production of the F-150 Lightning at its Rouge EV plant in Dearborn, Mich., of 150,000 by the end of the year — which is the installed capacity of the plant — translating to 3,200 vehicles assembled per week. Ford has now told its F-150 Lightning suppliers that it is planning to slash that output to around 1,600 Lightnings assembled per week, or half the original goal, per a memo obtained by Automotive News. When Yahoo Finance reached out to Ford for comment, the automaker said it was “matching production to customer demand.” Clearly, customer demand has fallen, as consumers balk at paying higher prices for EVs compared to gas-powered cars, as well as paying higher financing costs compared to only a couple of years ago. For instance the F-150 Lightning Pro starts at $49,995 (before tax credits), whereas a base XL SuperCrew F-150 gas-powered truck starts at $40,780. Read more: Are electric cars more expensive to insure? That being said, Ford reported a record month for F-150 Lightning sales in November, selling nearly 4,400 trucks in the month — a 100% jump from a year ago. However, if Ford averages 5,000 Lightning trucks sold a month next year, that would mean only 60,000 trucks for the year — less than the halved production planned for 2024. Competition is also heating up in the EV truck space, with Tesla’s Cybertruck beginning a handful of initial deliveries less than two weeks ago, Rivian selling more of its R1 EV adventure vehicles, and GM about to enter the fray next year with its Silverado EV pickups. Ford had big plans for its EV transformation, as outlined in its Ford+ plan at its Capital Markets Day in May. Since then Ford said it will “push out” around $12 billion in EV investments, and was shrinking battery capacity at upcoming plants like one in Michigan that would use CATL technology. Ford is also delaying the start of production at two of the JV battery plants it is building in Kentucky. Despite the effects of the UAW strike and higher labor costs — and the changing reality of the EV demand story — Ford is still targeting an 8% EBIT margin for its EV business by 2026, Ford CFO John Lawler recently said at the Barclays automotive and mobility conference in New York. For comparison, the automaker's Ford Blue traditional gas-powered business is targeting a long-term EBIT of low double digits, with the Ford Pro commercial unit aiming for the mid-teens. Ford is betting on continuous improvements on its current EVs, like the Lightning and Mustang Mach-E crossover, to make them less expensive with improved components and streamlined manufacturing processes. But the bigger bet is on its second-gen EVs, which the company is forecasting will help the company be more profitable. “The main message is we had to design these second-generation products completely different than the first-gen products,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said to Yahoo Finance at its Capital Markets Day. Farley said second-gen products like its Project T3 pickup and three-row EV SUV will be coming in 2025 — with competitive pricing to boot. “We are going to see pricing pressure, and if you have not put that in your business plan and you haven't designed second-cycle products with discounting included in your run rate to get to an 8% margin in our case, then it's not going to work out,” Farley said.
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Post by Blitz on Dec 12, 2023 17:20:32 GMT -5
Shell sells US green power stakes under 'dilution' strategy Oil supermajor agrees deal to divest big chunks of wind and solar projects 12 December 2023 - By Andrew Lee in London www.upstreamonline.com/energy-transition/shell-sells-us-green-power-stakes-under-dilution-strategy/2-1-1569838Shell will sell large stakes in two of its US renewable energy projects as part of its strategy to dilute its ownership of power assets. The oil and gas supermajor agreed to sell a 60% interest in Brazos Wind, a 182 megawatt wind farm in Texas, and 50% of its 180 MW Madison Fields solar development project in Ohio. The deal with investment group InfraRed Capital Partners is due to complete in early 2024, with financial terms not disclosed.
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Post by Blitz on Dec 13, 2023 12:28:55 GMT -5
Transition away from fossil fuels? Big Oil has other ideas Story by Analysis by Hanna Ziady, CNN • Dec 13, 2023 www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/transition-away-from-fossil-fuels-big-oil-has-other-ideas/ar-AA1lrYPUIs this the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era? The world’s latest climate deal could be that milestone. But recent events show the oil and gas industry still has a very different vision of the future. Following marathon talks, the COP28 climate summit in Dubai struck a deal Wednesday that makes the unprecedented call for “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” Some countries, including the United States, welcomed the firmest-ever commitment to moving away from energy sources responsible for most planet-heating emissions, but critics were quick to point out that the agreement falls far short of requiring the world to “phase-out” oil, coal and gas, a position more than 100 nations had supported. “The resolution is marred by loopholes that offer the fossil fuel industry numerous escape routes,” said Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at nonprofit Climate Action Network International. However vague or watered down the language, the deal looks out of touch with reality. US oil production is at a record; India plans to double coal output by 2030; the UK is issuing new drilling licences in the North Sea; and American oil majors are splurging billions on deals that signal they see robust demand for decades to come. “Anything less than a systematic transformation of the fossil fuel industry would be at odds with COP28’s deal,” said Daniel Klier, the CEO of ESG Book, a provider of sustainability data on companies. “The reality is no single climate summit can single-handedly drive the transition away from fossil fuels, let alone a phase out.” The latest evidence of the industry doubling down on fossil fuels came Monday, when Occidental Petroleum said it would pay $12 billion in cash and stock to buy US shale oil producer CrownRock. It followed ExxonMobil’s (XOM) October announcement of a $60 billion deal to acquire shale driller Pioneer Natural Resources, and Chevron’s (CVX) agreement less than two weeks later to buy shale producer Hess for $53 billion. Hess (HES) also has large oil assets in Guyana, which Chevron said would help grow its production over the next decade. Another $50-billion oil and gas deal could take shape soon, this time in Australia. Woodside Energy and Santos are talking about a merger that would create one of the world’s biggest exporters of liquified natural gas (LNG) in a clear bet on continued strong demand from Asia for the fuel. “Markets aren’t functioning properly and are rewarding the wrong companies … If anything, our future depends on markets rewarding those oil companies that are decarbonising at pace,” said ESG Book’s Klier. But cash-rich oil giants are taking advantage of recent windfall profits to snap up lower-cost assets and boost shareholder returns, while directing much less investment to renewable energy. The industry invested just $20 billion in clean energy projects last year — only around 2.5% of its total capital spending, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Paris-based agency says that share would need to shoot up to 50% by 2030 to help keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — a limit scientists say is crucial to avoid a significant worsening in the effects of climate change, including extreme flooding, drought, wildfires and food shortages. The recent flurry of deals offers little hope that oil and gas firms are planning radical changes to how they spend their cash, even though that is what is urgently needed. “With the world suffering the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor environmentally responsible,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement last month ahead of the climate summit. “The oil and gas industry is facing a moment of truth at COP28 in Dubai.” On Wednesday, Birol struck a more sanguine note. “I congratulate the #COP28 Presidency & countries for this major outcome that clearly states the goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels in line with 1.5C,” he posted to X. The IEA did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, beyond Birol’s remark, on how the deal stacks up with what is unfolding on the ground, which is clearly at odds with its previous calls for a stop to all new investment in oil and gas projects. The agency said Sunday that the world is still off-track to limit global warming to the crucial 1.5-degree threshold, despite pollution-slashing pledges made by dozens of countries at COP28. It thinks global demand for oil, gas and coal is likely to peak by 2030. Even Europe’s oil giants, including Shell (SHEL) and BP (BP), which have a better track record on renewable energy investment than their US rivals, are still channeling billions towards fossil fuels. Earlier this year, BP backed away from climate targets it set three years ago, curbing ambitious cuts to carbon emissions and oil and gas production. Coal pickers carry coal from near an open cast mining site on the outskirts of Dhanbad on July 6, 2023. India expects to double coal output by 2030. - Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images © Provided by CNN Oil and gas companies operating in Norway, western Europe’s largest producer, are planning to invest 240 billion Norwegian crowns ($21.85 billion) in 2024 — 9% up on this year and nearly a quarter more than previously expected, Reuters reported — citing a survey from industry group Offshore Norway. Elsewhere, the United Kingdom committed earlier this year to granting “hundreds” of new licenses to enable companies to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea. Much bigger oil and gas producing nations also look to be heading in the wrong direction. In a joint statement Wednesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GEPC) — groups that include the United Arab Emirates, host of COP28 — welcomed the “consensual and positive” outcome reached in Dubai but stressed that “continued investment in oil and natural gas is essential.” A recent United Nations Environment Programme report found that the world’s fossil fuel production in 2030 is set to be more than twice the amount needed to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. One of the major contributors to that disastrous overshoot will be India, which is burning ever greater amounts of coal and oil as it tries to meet the needs of its 1.4 billion people. It plans to double domestic coal production by 2030, even as it also sets ambitious targets for renewable energy. In perhaps the clearest sign yet that the world’s latest climate deal will do little to reshape the future for fossil fuel producers, Saudi Arabia — the world’s biggest oil exporter and OPEC kingpin — welcomed it. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told state-owned news outlet Al Arabiya that the COP28 deal would not affect the Kingdom’s hydrocarbon exports. “The text, it provides alternatives,” he said.
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Post by Blitz on Dec 19, 2023 9:21:06 GMT -5
I heard on CNBC this morning that USA needs 435 new charging stations per day to reach 2035 EV goals. I doubt that's going to happen. I doubt the grid can handle it. I doubt the ESG goals can be achieve in the timelines laid out. Even Elon is pointing out it's unrealistic. And now this... Here’s how many EV chargers the US has – and how many it needs Michelle Lewis - | Jan 9 2023 - 3:34 pm PT electrek.co/2023/01/09/heres-how-many-ev-chargers-the-us-has-and-how-many-it-needs/ EVs electrical grid There are currently more than 160,000 EV chargers in the United States. Here’s how many the auto industry data analysts at S&P Global Mobility think the country will need to install by 2030. How many EV chargers the US has S&P Global Mobility estimates that there are presently around 16,822 Tesla Superchargers and Tesla destination chargers in the United States, along with 126,500 Level 2 and 20,431 Level 3 charging ports. The number of charging ports increased more in 2022 than in the preceding three years combined, with about 54,000 Level 2 and 10,000 Level 3 chargers added during 2022. S&P Global Mobility says registration data shows that there are 1.9 million EVs on US roads – 0.7% of the 281 million vehicles in operation – as of October 31, 2022. New light-vehicle registration share for EVs reached 5.2% over the first 10 months of 2022, and rapid growth is going to happen, thanks to consumer demand, US government policy that incentivizes EV purchases like the Inflation Reduction Act, and increasing interest and investment from the financial sector. How many EV chargers the US needs EV market share for new vehicles is likely to reach 40% by 2030, at which point the total number of EVs in operation could reach 28.3 million, according to S&P Global Mobility forecasts. The group expects that there will need to be about 700,000 Level 2 and 70,000 Level 3 chargers deployed, including both public and restricted-use facilities. So, in order to match the charging needs of all those EVs, the United States will need to quadruple the number of EV chargers between 2022 and 2025 and grow more than eight-fold by 2030, even taking home charging into account, according to the analysts. By 2027, the analysts expect that there will be a need for about 1.2 million Level 2 chargers and 109,000 Level 3 chargers deployed nationally. And looking to 2030, with the assumption that there will be 28.3 million EVs on US roads, a total of around 2.13 million Level 2 and 172,000 Level 3 public chargers will be required, in addition to home EV chargers. Where EV chargers are going As of September 27, 2022, all 50 states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have approved state plans under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program [Updated January 18, 2023]. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has made available $5 billion over five years to be spent on EV charging infrastructure across the US. President Joe Biden has pledged that the federal government will pay for the installation of 500,000 chargers. The four states with the highest number of EVs in operation and highest new-vehicle registrations traditionally are California, Florida, Texas, and New York. Because these states all take a different approach to emissions reduction – that is, California and New York prioritize it and Florida and Texas don’t – S&P Global Mobility attributes this growth to the size of their markets. California is in the lead by far, with nearly 37% of total EVs in operation and nearly 36% of total US light-vehicle EV registrations from Jan-Sept 2022. Florida sits in a distant second with 7.4% of light-vehicle EV registrations and 6.9% of EVs in operation. Texas comes in at 5.8% of EVs in operation and 6.4% of EV light-vehicle registrations. As an example of what is and what’s needed at the state level, Texas currently has about 5,600 Level 2 non-Tesla and 900 Level 3 chargers, but S&P Global Mobility forecasts that the Lone Star State will need around 87,500 Level 2 and 7,800 level 3 chargers to support the expected 1.1 million EVs in operation by 2027. Eighty-five percent of Level 3 chargers and 89% of Level 2 chargers are currently located in the 384 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) as defined by the US Census Bureau. For Tesla owners, 82% of Tesla Superchargers and 83% of its destination chargers are in MSAs. S&P Global Mobility analyst Ian McIlravey said: The focus on urban areas follows where EVs are today, but distribution will need to be much wider as vehicles in operation grow, and consumers need to charge along their routes. And Graham Evans, S&P Global Mobility research and analysis director, said: For mass-market acceptance of BEVs to take hold, the recharging infrastructure must do more than keep pace with EV sales. It must surprise and delight vehicle owners who will be new to electrification, so that the process seems seamless and perhaps even more convenient than their experience with gasoline refueling, with minimal compromise on the vehicle ownership experience. Electrek’s Take What the US really needs is an increase in the density of DC fast chargers, and the strategic location of said DC fast chargers in convenient, well-lit places. It’s not useful to have hundreds of Level 2 chargers along an interstate. People who are road tripping need convenient fast chargers right off the road. (Oh, and to state the obvious, they need to be in working order.) This is why Tesla Superchargers are great. Anyone who has used them on the New Jersey Turnpike, for example, knows what I’m talking about. You pull straight off, they’re in a conspicuous, well-lit area, and there are food and restrooms right next to them. They’re safe and convenient. Within 20 minutes you’re back on the road. Compare that to my two-hour road trip last week from Boston to Vermont in my VW ID.4. Logan Airport has 6.5 kW EV charging ports in the parking garage. They’re free, and that’s nice, but you’re not allowed to leave your car plugged in while you’re traveling. Top comment by Bob Anderson Liked by 19 people I am baffled why there is so much focus on L2 charging. If you're a homeowner, you'll charge at home for commuting around town. For road trips, you'll use L3 charging. And if you're staying at a hotel, they will most likely have a L2 charger. If you are renting, hopefully, you'll find a place that has L2 chargers available, but if not, you can always quickly charge at a local L3 station. But L2 at grocery stores and especially along highways for long-distance travel is useless, as the article mentions. Who wants to wait 5 hours in a parking lot waiting for a charge? This is why GMs 40,000 charger plan and the 500,000 chargers promised by the government are a waste of money (at least the L2 aspect). Thankfully Tesla has figured this out and spends money on chargers where it matters. What in the hell are you going to do with a 6.5 kW charging port at the airport? Sleep in your car after you return? Airports really ought to provide each EV parking spot with a Level 1 outlet that you can just plug your car into while you travel. That would be a dream. So I drove to Somerville, just a couple miles from Logan, to a set of three 150 kW Electrify America charging ports. I had to put my credit card into the kiosk to get into the parking garage where they were located. I had to search for them. They were isolated, near no bathrooms, and it was 10 p.m. It was far from an ideal experience. Rollout of new EV charging ports needs to correct this situation.
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Post by Blitz on Dec 19, 2023 9:23:26 GMT -5
Elon Musk Asks World to Stop Demonizing Oil (for now) By Charles Kennedy - Dec 18, 2023, 3:30 PM CST oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Elon-Musk-Asks-World-to-Stop-Demonizing-Oil-for-now.htmlElon Musk, the CEO of the ~$798-billion market cap EV company, Tesla, has regaled a right-wing summit in Italy with criticism of climate-change “exaggerating” environmentalists, and called on the public to stop “demonizing” fossil fuels. “I am objectively one of the world’s leading environmentalists in terms of doing things,” he said. “Of action, not talk,” adding that few could claim to have done more than he has to build a sustainable energy future. The summit, organized in Rome by the right-wing Brothers of Italy party led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was gunning for a publicly stunt win, which it found in Musk, the summit’s guest star. Speaking to the choir, Musk told those gathered that people had started to view humanity as “a plague on the surface of the Earth” and bemoaned what he viewed as an environmentalist movement that has gone “too far”. “I think the climate change alarm is somewhat overblown in the short term,” he said. “It’s still a concern in the long term but I think it’s exaggerated in the short term.” Over the coming few decades, Musk said, we need to gradually reduce carbon emissions, conceding that we are “running a climate experiment which is dangerous”, though not necessarily a “fundamental civilizational risk”. “It won’t destroy humanity,” Musk said. Musk told the Italian hard-right that it was time to be “pragmatic” and “sensible”, instead of demonizing oil and gas–at least in the medium-term. When asked if Tesla would be investing in Italy, Musk said the country was a great place to invest, but expressed concern about the low birth rate and the future of the workforce, calling on the government to create incentives for families to have more children and avoid a demographic crisis. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Dec 22, 2023 8:04:16 GMT -5
Only Half of All Ford Dealers Agree to Sell EVs Next Year By Julianne Geiger - Dec 21, 2023, 2:30 PM CST oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Only-Half-of-All-Ford-Dealers-Agree-to-Sell-EVs-Next-Year.htmlFord said on Thursday that half of all 1,550 Ford dealers chose to sell electric vehicles in 2024—down from two-thirds that said this time last year that they would opt in to sell EVs for 2023. The other half of Ford dealers will sell—and service—ICE and hybrid models. “EV adoption rates vary across the country, and we believe our dealers know their market best,” Ford spokesman Martin Günsberg told the Detroit Free Press. The slack buy-in from Ford dealerships comes even after Ford relaxed its requirements for dealers in the EV dealer program last January that mandated fewer L2 chargers and extended installation deadlines. Certified Ford EV dealers were once required to spend $500,000 for a single public DC fast charger, or $1 million if they wanted to be in the Elite tier of EV dealers. The extra $500,000 was for another fast charger and demo units, among other things. But the high price tag caused Ford dealers to balk. Buick saw a similar engagement among its dealers last year, according to Electrek, with half of Buick dealers choosing buyouts of their franchises instead of selling EVs. As a result, GM now has 47% fewer Buick dealers as of the end of this year compared to January. The hardline taken by GM with regard to its Buick dealers is in line with Buick’s ambitious plan to be all-electric by 2030. Ford said earlier this month that it was reducing the planned number of F-150 Lightning EV trucks by half starting next year, kicking out 1,600 F-150 per week beginning in January, down from 3,200 per week, saying that it would match production with customer demand. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Post by Blitz on Jan 11, 2024 12:50:49 GMT -5
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Post by Blitz on Jan 14, 2024 7:34:43 GMT -5
Tesla Gets a $94 Billion Reality Check as EV Winter Sets In Esha Dey - Sat, Jan 13, 2024, 8:30 AM EST5 min read finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-gets-94-billion-reality-133000964.html(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. had a blockbuster 2023, as its shares more than doubled in 12 months. But 2024 is starting on a different note, with Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker off to its worst start to any year. The company has lost more than $94 billion in market valuation in just the first two weeks of 2024. It’s not hard to figure out why, as the Austin, Texas-based EV maker has been pounded by a barrage of negative news: an about-face on EVs from the car rental giant Hertz Global Holdings Inc., yet another price cut for its cars made in China, and signs of rising labor costs. All of this comes in the face of slowing growth in demand for EVs, especially in the US. “Investors’ main concern on Tesla is stagnating growth,” Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne said in an interview. The price cuts in China only fan those concerns, because it is starting to look like “a race to the bottom for the EV industry given intense competition in that market.” The hit to Tesla’s market capitalization to start the year is the biggest the company has seen over a similar period since it went public in 2010. In percentage terms, Tesla’s 12% drop since the start of January is the worst since 2016, when the stock fell 14% over the first nine trading days of the year. To make matters worse, the odds of an imminent turnaround for the EV maker don’t look good. Tesla has been cutting prices on its cars aggressively since early 2023 in an effort to boost demand. But the result has been a steady erosion of its once-hefty profit margin. Tesla’s automotive gross margin ex-regulatory credits for the third quarter fell to 16.3% from 27.9% a year ago. And the pressure is only mounting, now that production workers at Tesla’s US plants are getting pay raises. “We are going through a cyclical downturn for EVs, but competitive dynamics are exacerbating the cyclical pressures,” Ivana Delevska, chief investment officer at Spear Invest, said in an interview. “Price cuts and plummeting margins are all a function of these unfavorable competitive dynamics.” Adding to the woes, Tesla has had to re-route shipments destined for its Berlin plant after Western military actions and security concerns in the Red Sea, and is suspending most production at its plant near Berlin from Jan. 29 to Feb. 11, according to a person familiar with the matter. Not Strong Enough Tesla first warned about the deceleration in EV demand during its October third-quarter earnings report. Almost immediately after, automakers and suppliers across the globe chimed in with their own downbeat forecasts. Many carmakers dialed back their plans for expansion. Then, earlier this month, Tesla reported its fourth-quarter delivery numbers. While they were better than what analysts expected, they put the company behind China’s BYD Co. in global electric-car sales. The result has been a rude awakening for Tesla investors. Last year, the stock was the eighth best performer in the S&P 500. So far this year, it’s the eighth worst. Naturally, Musk is taking a big hit personally. The world’s richest person, who gained more wealth in 2023 than anyone else on the planet, has seen his net worth shrink by $23 billion so far this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk regained the top spot on Bloomberg’s wealth index last year, overtaking Bernard Arnault, but now Jeff Bezos is rapidly closing in, with $179 billion to Musk’s $206 billion as of Friday’s close. The bulk of Musk’s net worth comes from his 13% stake in Tesla and about 304 million exercisable stock options. He also owns about 42% of SpaceX, which is valued at about $53 billion, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index. Still The One With all that being said, Tesla remains a key player in the global transition from gas-powered vehicles to largely electric ones. The reason: It’s so far ahead of its potential rivals. China’s BYD may have surpassed Tesla in the number of units sold, but it still lags in revenue and profits. And BYD doesn’t sell cars in the US, where Tesla remains the market leader. In many ways, Tesla’s biggest problem may be its past success and the hope it generated. As investors piled into the stock, Tesla’s market capitalization ballooned, making it way larger than any other car company in the world. However, with the shares priced for perfection, that also made them highly vulnerable to big reactions to any negative news. That’s why so many Tesla proponents argue that it shouldn’t be compared to regular car companies. To them, the ultimate true value of the company rests in the future and it’s hope to develop the first truly self-driving vehicles. The only problem is Tesla has been promising this for years, and most experts say the technology is still years, maybe even decades, away. “Tesla has not been able to deliver on fully autonomous driving and AI promises, which are already embedded in the valuation,” Spear’s Delevska said. “Being simply another automotive manufacturer is not going to cut it for a $750 billion valuation.” --With assistance from Matt Turner, Kristine Owram and Ed Ludlow.
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Post by Blitz on Jan 17, 2024 9:28:42 GMT -5
Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather January 17, 2024 dnyuz.com/2024/01/17/electric-car-owners-confront-a-harsh-foe-cold-weather/With Chicago temperatures sinking below zero, electric vehicle charging stations have become scenes of desperation: depleted batteries, confrontational drivers and lines stretching out onto the street. “When it’s cold like this, cars aren’t functioning well, chargers aren’t functioning well, and people don’t function so well either,” said Javed Spencer, an Uber driver who said he had done little else in the last three days besides charge his rented Chevy Bolt and worry about being stranded with a dead battery — again. Mr. Spencer, 27, said he set out on Sunday for a charging station with 30 miles left on his battery. Within minutes, the battery was dead. He had to have the car towed to the station. “When I finally plugged it in, it wasn’t getting any charge,” he said. Recharging the battery, which usually takes Mr. Spencer an hour, took five hours. With more people owning electric vehicles than ever before, cold snaps this winter have created headaches for electric vehicle owners, as freezing temperatures drain batteries and reduce driving range. And the problems may persist a little longer. Chicago and other parts of the United States and Canada this week have been stunned by bitterly cold temperatures. On Tuesday, wind chills plummeted near -30 degrees across much of the Chicago area, according to the National Weather Service. Dangerously low temperatures and waves of snow are expected to stick through the end of the week. ‘It’s kind of like, I don’t really want a Tesla.’ Vehicles use more energy to heat their batteries and cabin in cold weather, so it is normal to see energy consumption increase, Tesla reminds users in a post on its website, where it offers a few tips for drivers: Keep the charge level above 20 percent to reduce the impact of freezing temperatures. Tesla also recommends that drivers use its “scheduled departure” feature to register the start of a trip in advance, so the vehicle can determine the best time to start charging and preconditioning. That allows the car to operate at peak efficiency from the moment it starts. In a painfully chilly parking lot in Chicago on Tuesday, Tesla drivers huddled in their cars waiting for a charge. That morning, Nick Sethi, a 35-year-old engineer in Chicago, said he had found his Tesla frozen shut. He spent an hour in minus 5-degree temperatures struggling with the locks. Finally, he was able to chisel out the embedded trunk handle to open it, clambering in and driving his Model Y Long Range S.U.V. five miles to the closet supercharging station. He joined a long line of Tesla drivers. All 12 charging posts were occupied, with drivers slowing the process down slightly by staying inside their vehicles with the heat on high. “It’s been a roller-coaster ride,” Mr. Sethi, who moved to Chicago from Dallas last spring, said of owning a Tesla through a string of brutally cold days. “I’ll go through the winter and then decide whether I keep it.” A few charging posts down, Joshalin Rivera was also experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse. She sat with the heat blasting inside her 2023 Tesla Model 3 as she juiced up the battery. “If you’re waiting in that line and you only have 50 miles, you’re not going to make it,” Ms. Rivera said, gesturing to the line of vehicles stretched out onto Elston Avenue. She said that she had watched as a Tesla whose desperate driver attempted to cut the line died in the same location on Monday. In normal conditions, Ms. Rivera’s car can drive up to 273 miles on a single, 30-minute charge. This week, Ms. Rivera said she has awaken to find about a third of her car battery drained from the overnight cold. As temperatures plummeted, she spent hours every morning waiting in line and recharging the battery. “It’s kind of like, I don’t really want a Tesla,” she said. Why does cold weather drain electric vehicle batteries? Unlike cars with internal combustion engines, an electric vehicle has two batteries: a low-voltage and a high-voltage. In particularly cold weather, the lower-voltage, 12-volt battery can also lose charge, like it does in traditional vehicles. When that happens, the E.V. cannot charge at a fast charger until the low voltage battery has been jump-started, said Albert Gore III, a former Tesla employee who is now the executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, which represents automakers including Tesla and has released a tips sheet for operating electric vehicles in cold weather. The challenge for electric vehicles is the two sides of the battery — the anode and the cathode — have chemical reactions that are slowed during extremely cold temperatures. That affects both the charging and the discharging of the battery, said Jack Brouwer, director of the Clean Energy Institute and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. “It ends up being very difficult to make battery electric vehicles work in very cold conditions, Mr. Brouwer said. “You cannot charge a battery as fast or discharge a battery as fast if it’s cold. There’s no physical way of getting around.” They don’t have these problems in Norway. As people in the industry study what went wrong in Chicago, some suggest that the charging infrastructure may have been simply outmatched by the extreme cold weather. “We’re just a few years into E.V. deployment at scale.,” Mr. Gore said. “This is not a categorical problem for electric vehicles,” he added, “because it has largely been sorted out in other places.” Some of the countries with the highest usage of electric vehicles are also among the coldest. In Norway, where nearly one in four vehicles are electric, drivers are accustomed to taking steps, such as preheating the car ahead of a drive, to increase efficiency even in cold weather, said Lars Godbolt, an adviser of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, which represents more than 120,000 electric car owners in Norway. Charging stations in Norway see longer lines in the winter than summer, since vehicles are slower to charge in colder weather, but that has become less of an issue in recent years since Norway has built more charging ports, Mr. Godbolt said, citing a recent survey of members. Also, the majority of people in Norway live in houses, not apartments, and nearly 90 percent of electric vehicle owners have their own charging stations at home, he said. Around the world, 14 percent of all new cars sold in 2022 were electric, up from 9 percent in 2021 and less than 5 percent in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, which provides data on energy security. In Europe, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Denmark had the highest share of electric vehicles in new car registrations in 2022, according to the European Environment Agency. Cold weather is likely to be less of an issue as companies update electric vehicles models. Even in the last few years, companies have developed capabilities that allow newer models to be more efficient in the cold. “These new challenges rise up, and the industry innovates their way to not completely but at least partly solve many of these issues,” Mr. Godbolt said. All vehicles, including ones powered by diesel or gas, perform worse in cold weather, noted James Boley, a spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a trade association that represents more than 800 automotive companies in Britain. He said that the problem was less about the capacity of electric vehicles to run well in cold weather, and more about the inability to provide necessary infrastructure, like charging stations. With a gas or diesel powered car, drivers have complete confidence that they will find gas stations, so are less focused on their decreased efficiency in cold weather, he said. “If electric vehicle charging infrastructure isn’t in place, it can be more of a concern.” Mr. Spencer, the Uber driver, said the economics of driving an E.V. for a ride-sharing service may not work in Chicago winters. “The payout is the same, but the cost to drivers, with all these extra charges, is much more,” he said.
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Post by bjspokanimal on Jan 17, 2024 15:35:28 GMT -5
Re: cold weather and EVs;
In Spokane, the main power and gas company, Avista, asked customers to pare their use of gas and electricity during the arctic cold snap. Normally, the concern would have been only with gas, but EV charging stations were cited as a significant factor for electricity. Even with EV ownership in it's infancy in this area (we are NOT Seattle), it's already taxing the grid. It'll only get worse, but not quite any brown-outs yet leaving people with electric heat at the mercy of Tesla owners.
Also, I have a pair of Lithium Ion batteries that power the cabin in my RV and when I went to my service guy in October, he warned me about how the cold would affect them. He said that, besides the problems cited in the article Blitz posted above, extreme cold can also shorten the lifespan if Lithium batteries. He said to keep them warm, so I've currently got a space heater under them on low in a garage. He also said to have them fully charged ahead of the cold and to avoid discharging them and re-charging them when they're really cold.
What I'm gleaning from what I've learned, is that all of those Tesla owners out there repeatedly charging/discharging in below zero temperatures are significantly shortening the lifespan of their batteries, which are very expensive to replace. Better to park their car in a "relatively" warm garage and drive their ICE car until the cold subsides...
... provided they weren't so stupid as to have an EV as their only car.
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Post by Blitz on Jan 17, 2024 17:45:57 GMT -5
Re: cold weather and EVs; In Spokane, the main power and gas company, Avista, asked customers to pare their use of gas and electricity during the arctic cold snap. Normally, the concern would have been only with gas, but EV charging stations were cited as a significant factor for electricity. Even with EV ownership in it's infancy in this area (we are NOT Seattle), it's already taxing the grid. It'll only get worse, but not quite any brown-outs yet leaving people with electric heat at the mercy of Tesla owners. Also, I have a pair of Lithium Ion batteries that power the cabin in my RV and when I went to my service guy in October, he warned me about how the cold would affect them. He said that, besides the problems cited in the article Blitz posted above, extreme cold can also shorten the lifespan if Lithium batteries. He said to keep them warm, so I've currently got a space heater under them on low in a garage. He also said to have them fully charged ahead of the cold and to avoid discharging them and re-charging them when they're really cold. What I'm gleaning from what I've learned, is that all of those Tesla owners out there repeatedly charging/discharging in below zero temperatures are significantly shortening the lifespan of their batteries, which are very expensive to replace. Better to park their car in a "relatively" warm garage and drive their ICE car until the cold subsides... ... provided they weren't so stupid as to have an EV as their only car. Not only that, but EV batteries should not be charged inside garages as their batteries can catch fire during charging. I've read about a few houses burning down here in Miami due to EV charging fires. Norway has somewhat solved the problem with fast charge stations and better fast-charging batteries. www.fastcompany.com/91011373/evs-work-fine-in-the-cold-in-norway-heres-how-they-do-itExcerpt: HOW CAN EV DRIVERS PROTECT THEIR CAR’S BATTERIES FROM THE COLD? Drivers of gas cars have likely heard that they shouldn’t let their gas tank get dangerously low in freezing temperatures—more air in your tank, experts say, means more moisture that could condense and freeze, blocking fuel from flowing. Similarly, EV drivers are having to learn how to protect their vehicles against winter weather. In a blog post on an Audi dealership site, one Norwegian family shared tips for using their Audi EV in the winter, like pre-heating the car while it’s still plugged into their home charging (this is also called preconditioning), or using just the steering wheel or seat heating as a way to stay warm, and save range, on short trips. (These types of heating use less energy than warming up the entire car’s cabin.) Experts say that drivers should park EVs inside a garage to protect it from the cold, and keep an eye on the battery temperature (lithium ion batteries perform best between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit). If your battery is too cold and can’t be stored indoors, you could use a battery blanket to warm it up. Just like with internal combustion cars, you should also check the tire pressure, which may drop in the cold. EV drivers should also keep an eye on their battery level and ensure it doesn’t get too low, as bringing it back to a full charge will take longer in the cold (many EVs actually limit charging speeds when the battery is cold, in order to protect it from extreme temperature fluctuations). Home chargers are helpful for this as drivers keep their EV plugged in overnight (with a maximum charge setting around 70%), which will keep the battery at a warm temperature. ___________________ AUTOS GM warns some Bolt EV owners: Don’t park them inside or charge them unattended overnight PUBLISHED WED, JUL 14 2021 - Michael Wayland www.cnbc.com/2021/07/14/gm-warns-some-bolt-ev-owners-dont-park-them-inside-or-charge-them-unattended-overnight.htmlKEY POINTS - General Motors is telling some owners of 2017-2019 Bolt EVs not to park their vehicles inside or charge them unattended overnight. - Two of the vehicles caught fire after they were repaired as part of a recall meant to address fire risks. ___________________ While they were asleep, their Teslas burned in the garage. It’s a risk many automakers are taking seriously. A fire inspector cited the thermal management system in one of the Tesla Model S sedans as one of two possible causes of the blaze, which showed what can happen when one electric car ignites another in a garage. By Faiz Siddiqui - August 4, 2021 www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-fire/
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