Emergency alert – unplug your electric vehicles, turn off your air conditioning, and buy a clothesline. We're out of electricity.
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[/center] [i][b]Photo above[/b] - America will need 40,000 miles of new high voltage lines to charge our electric cars. And a good portion of the 120,000 miles of existing lines are nearing a century old.[/i]
[i]“I'm from the government, and I'm here to help . . .” [/i]Yes, that's the punchline to some really old jokes. It's funny because it's true. A government official shows up at your doorstep with all the answers, and no conception of the problem. But at least in the good old days, you could count on our government having basic math skills. We built the first atom bomb and sent astronauts to the moon.
But now, after nearly a decade of pushing us to ditch gasoline, natural gas, furnace fuel oil, coal and even nuclear power, somebody finally crunched the numbers. There's not enough electricity. Holy Cow! (see link below).
Okay – I get it. We were supposed to have windmills from sea to shining sea by now. Probably offshore too. And don't get me started on solar panels. They're not on my rooftop, and they're not on yours. Only 3% of America's homes have rooftop solar, and most of those don't even provide half of that family's electric needs.
Clearly the problem is . . . not enough government subsidies, right? After tripling the National Debt since 2010 (it was “only” $10 trillion then), we might be $100 trillion short of what it takes to build a green energy grid. And if we do, the polar ice caps are STILL gonna melt. The last ice age has been steadily receding for the past 25,000 years.
It's not just lack of electrical generating capacity. It's the wires, too. America has 120,000 miles of wires. A bunch of that is a century old. Evidently all the stuff in California. Hawaii just set itself on fire too, with decrepit high voltage lines. Don't ask me what's under the streets in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, etc. Government officials don't really know either. Fast fact – 70% of New York City's water supply leaks from pipes before it even reaches anyone's tap. Nobody wants to dig up the streets to fix this. It would take more money than you can imagine. Or at least more than New Yorkers could pay, even if their taxes went to the moon.
Even if you don't replace a single mile of rusty, fraying wire, we're still going to need tens of thousands of miles of new lines to connect all the new fast chargers on our highways, and solar farms, and wind turbine farms. Just to connect the new stuff. The old wires will probably have to wait, like America's 17,000 bridges which are rated unsafe.
So this is clearly a problem. We moved from the iron/coal age, directly to the lithium/electricity age. We didn't spend enough time generating electricity with uranium for it to qualify as a nuclear power age. I'm okay with that. If Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught us anything, it's that both dictators and democracies struggle to master Isotopes 101.
I wish I could say I predicted this electricity crisis. Then I could start shouting “I told you so!” But I'm no better than Amerca's army of GS15 administrators when it comes to forecasting electricity demand. But that doesn't change the situation - America has the largest government bureaucracy on the planet, and the largest national debt. And now we're hearing that they didn't even know we're running out of electricity.
I'm just sayin' . . .
[u][b]Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power - - - Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said the revised forecast for power needs in Georgia showed power use in the state increasing 17 times. New demand, not total demand, is projected to increase 17 times. The article also misspelled the name of the agency that...📷 finance.yahoo.com[/b][/u]
And if you want to know how America will fail in the end, there is your answer. In the days of Americas rise to greatness, those people who made a profit out of the country also invested, to develop in and bring more progress. Now those companies just rip profit out anyplace they can, whine toi the government its not enough and demand subsidies and never invest in the future..So in the end, those people who want elecricity will put up a turbine, or install solar panels and a battery Thats how you invest in your future...😷
But! But! What happened to Pappa Joe's trillion dollar infrastructure bill??? Where did all that money go to??? After all he was going to modernize our rail system and give us bullet trains for travel. He was going to redo and modernize our infrastructure system. He couldn't have lied to us could he????? 🤷♂️
@Musicman sad but true - about 20-30% of public charging stations are offline. either because of vandalisim, faulty installation, or software glitches.
and because the installers/owners get an up front subsidy to install the device, and no additional funds for repairs, their sole interest is in adding new sites. not maintaining what there already is.
this is the same way america manages the electric grid, bridges, public buildings like schools.
in my town they're replacing a perfectly good 30-35 year old library. with a brand new one.
their explanation? "we have a persistent racoon infestation, and a leaky roof"
Electric vehicles are not feasible in most of the US.
Big business usually won't spend money unless they're bribed by the government.
This state is the world's capitol of energy. Extreme weather makes us worry. A winter brownout a few years ago killed 200+ people. Energy companies were awarded rate hikes which did not address the problem.
it ain't that hard to figure out that if you suddenly have millions of electric cars that are going to need to be charged, you better have the capacity to do that or maybe you shouldn't be pushing so hard until you have the capacity.
