EVs never going to be feasible with the current levels of driving
The reason those superchargers aren't working isn't so much due to feasibility of getting the cables across the bridge, it's because the wider 33 kV and 66 kV "medium voltage" distribution network is overloaded and it just doesn't have the capacity for the megawatts required by the supercharger station. There's a huge backlog going back about 12 years for projects trying to get a grid connection, be they power stations, solar farms, wind farms, Import/Export connectors, supercharger hubs, business parks or housing estates. In general the only places being approved for large amounts of power are sites of former/decommissioned power plants which already have a grid connection i.e. HV pylons and a big HV transformer. But there are very few new pylons going in, because they are expensive, they spoil the view, etc. And HV transformers are really hard to get hold of, because we can't make them here, lots of countries need them, and Putin has been blowing a lot of them up lately, so the price of new ones has gone up.
The reason you only have a 60A fuse at home, is because the low-voltage distribution grid in your area is overloaded. The housing developers didn't want to pay for extra transformers and fatter wire on your 400V "ring main", so it's 60A for you. And if you all use 60A at the same time, the transformers will trip. I have a 100A fuse, but I notice if I turn on my 40A electric shower, the mains voltage (at a socket on a different breaker) drops by 10-15V, depending on the time of day. That means the cable under the road combined with the transformer has a resistance of 0.2-0.3 ohms, and its efficiency drops as the load increases and the wire gets hotter. Sometimes it could be as low as 75% efficient, i.e. 15% of the power is lost heating up my local transformer and the underground cables. This lost heat goes up with the square of load, so I can only imagine what it would be like if everyone on my street had an EV and Heat Pump. We'd need some kind of rota so that we don't overload the local grid. Out in the sticks, it's a little easier since you are more likely to have an american-style system with a 11kV transformer on a pole outside each property. There are much fewer buried 400V cables. But still the 11kV system could be overloaded, and it's pretty much impossible to measure that yourself.
With EVs and Heat Pumps, we are ditching two out of three energy distribution systems (ie the gas grid and road-transported fuel) and combining their load into the one which is already the most expensive, unreliable and overloaded.
Therefore I believe we can never* get close to 100% EV adoption. There simply isn't enough resources to make that many plus the infrastructure upgrades needed to support them. Manufacture of batteries and solar panels is horrendously polluting and water-intensive at the best of times. Copper, cobalt, neodymium mining is pretty nasty too. It will be a lot nastier when we scale it up by a factor of 50. Recycling of batteries is very difficult and quite dangerous, and we still use NMC batteries with flammable electrolytes, because those are the only ones with acceptable range and performance in EVs. Sodium and LFP are too heavy. We are closing the plants that make Diesel engines and throwing out expertise before we have a proven alternative - especially true for haulage.
Policymakers are pretty stupid, but I don't think even they are so stupid that they think that everyone will be driving an EV and using a Heat Pump to heat their house in 10-15 years time.
However, the one thing that it is clear is that we are running out of resources. Even if Piers Corbyn turns out to be right and that the world was warming up anyway with or without our help, his point is moot because the world's capacity to support this many human lives is dwindling either way.
Fusion is never going to work. Fission has become too unpopular and expensive. Other eco-nonsense ideas like gravity well storage and heat batteries are complete utter hogswash, they cannot work anywhere near the scale needed.
* I think what has to happen is one of:
- Only the rich get to drive. The grids may fail regularly as they do in South Africa, but the rich will have their own solar panels and batteries, and everyone's quality of life will suffer, including the rich. I don't think we in the west will accept this, and there could be civil war in places like America if they tried to ban Gasoline and told everyone to fork out for an EV and solar panels or stop driving.
- Everyone agrees to drive no faster than 40mph and to use public transport where possible. This could be enforced by technology e.g. your Connected Car fines you if you drive more than 40, or if you drive further than your rationed annual distance. We would also need to wash less frequently and avoid using more than a couple of kilowatts each on EV charging and home heating/cooling, especially when there is low availability of renewables and/or our local grid is overloaded, and this could be enforced by our smart meters, which all feature a remote-controllable disconnect switch which could be used if we exceed our power-ration. Again, I think this could cause bloody revolution in places like the UK, US, Europe.
- Nobody agrees on anything, and a devastating third world war obliterates most of humanity, so that there are very few of us left to drain the planet's resources.
I think that the WEF et al. are clearly aiming for number 2. To use surveillance and technology to enforce a new eco-normal. A lot of people are understandably upset about the erosion of freedom that this implies, but I think it is clearly better than option, 1 and maybe better than option 3, it depends on my mood.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
