New Book Predicts a Cloudy Future for Electric Vehicles

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla., June 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A definitive new analysis shows that EVs now face an impending serious major setback—either dramatically higher electricity cost; or debilitating electric blackouts, as Wind and Solar take-over as the primary source of electric power. The analysis by electrical engineer and energy analyst Edward Rouse Pryor, is described in the just-released BriefBook: Oooppps! Climate Change Misconceptions.

The overwhelming cost of adequate back-up power for the variable and intermittent sources—Wind and Solar—has not been appropriately considered by planners and estimators of a large-scale carbon-free Wind and Solar electric future. And this has been obscured during the current Wind and Solar start-up phase because the electric grids' existing reserve margins have been filling-in the periods of interruption, and thus the true cost has not yet surfaced.

The grids reserve margins were originally established to fill-in for planned interruptions in electric supply such as a nuclear plant shutdown for refueling, or unplanned interruptions such as a fossil generating plant breakdown, or an unusual winter cold-spell or a summer heat-wave—either of which would cause a demand peak. Right now the electric grid's reserve is being diverted to fill-in when either the wind or sun experiences an interruption—thus substantially "using-up" the traditional reserve.    

As we increase Wind and Solar penetration of each electric grid's supply, we will soon exceed the 13 to 24 percent reserve margin of each of our major electric grids. And without very expensive multiple battery-bank facilities, massive pumped-hydroelectric reservoirs, or complex green-hydrogen generation and storage facilities as back-up, we will have random, unintended, sometimes lengthy, and debilitating blackouts.

In the late-spring of 2018, a nine-day (216-hour) Wind interruption was experienced in Great Britain's widespread electric grid. Ideologically-influenced USA planners are estimating four-to-six-hour maximum Wind interruptions—perhaps some 30-or-more times too little to prevent unexpected lengthy blackouts.

It is estimated the price of an "egallon" of electric fuel (the electric energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline) will rise from its current very economical price near $2, to about $20 per egallon in the year 2035 as penetration of the electric supply by Wind and Solar increases from 12 percent now to 72 percent then, and as expensive but necessary back-up energy storage systems are deployed—and those costs are amortized into the cost of electricity. How many people will want to drive electric vehicles at about $20 for 40 miles when gasoline car fuel will cost about $5 for the same distance?

Energy analyst and electrical engineer, Edward Rouse Pryor, concludes: "As intermittent Wind and Solar electric supplies increasingly penetrate the continuous, steady, fossil/hydro/nuclear base electric supply, the cost of electricity will become more and more expensive. One of the chief advantages of the EV today is the low cost of electric fuel. But continued penetration of the electric supply by Wind and Solar and the accompanying increase in the price of electricity, will lead to a greater and greater reluctance by consumers to consider an electric vehicle purchase."

The analysis described here is more fully characterized in the just-released (2023) BriefBook, Oooppps! Climate Change Misconceptions, written by Edward Rouse Pryor, an experienced engineering and scientific energy analyst, and author of the acclaimed The Climate Change Illusion, published in 2020.

Contact:
[email protected]
Edward Rouse Pryor, author
Tel. 772-999-3453

SOURCE Edward Rouse Pryor