You may think we need we therefore need a 33% increase in power generation just for every household to have a single EV, but that's not quite true. We need to factor in that residential electrical usage only comprises 40% of total electrical usage. That 33% increase suddenly becomes a 13.2% increase.
Even that's not the whole picture because refining oil to make gasoline requires 5 kWH of power per gallon. Most of that power comes from burning oil, but 40% of it is coming off the grid. That's 2 kWH of power coming off the grid to refine that 1 gallon of gas. Since the average American drives 37 miles per day, we'll say they're consuming roughly 1.5 gallons of gas per day, which used 3 kWH of power from the grid to refine.
If you work it all through you end up needing an 8% increase in generation to support every single US household having an EV (and it's an additional 8% for every additional EV). Sounds like a lot, right? No. There are vast differences in the demand for power from on-peak (during the day) and off-peak (during the evening) power. Vast enough that households can charge two EVs at night during the off-peak period and still not constrain the grid.
Getting back to your question - what kind of power grid can supply electricity to a country full of EVs? The grid we already have.
Because by the time the EV left the dealership, it already polluted more.
But over the life of the car, because they're not burning gasoline, the overall carbon footprint of an EV is lower. Even if your electricity comes from 100% coal, eventually the carbon footprint of the ICE will exceed the EV because burning coal at a massive scale to create electricity is more efficient than a small combustion engine, where well over half the energy is just waste heat.
And if your electricity comes from 100% renewables, then the carbon footprint is merely the manufacturing and will be significantly lower over the life of the car.
There is more pollution from breaks and tires than tailpipes. And EVs still use those.
Then, if gas lawn equipment like a mower or leaf blower pollutes more than several cars, then how much do you think the machines use in mining, agriculture, wood industry, etc. pollute?
More than 90% of the pollution comes from that equipment. None of those use a catalytic converter.
So even if you replace every car with an EV, the net pollution reduction will be marginal.
This is false. There is some pollution from brakes and tires but nowhere close to the pollution from tailpipes. Also regen braking reduces almost all the pollution from brakes.
Who cares?
Are there millions of pieces of this equipment in our cities? No? EVs cut down on smog in cities. They also cut down on CO2 output. These are substantial wins.
Absolute hogwash. Where could you even get that idea?
How much material is there in a set of tires that you will lose over the life of the tire? How many miles will it take to lose that material? Now consider how many hundreds of gallons of gas you will burn before those tires wear out.
> So even if you replace every car with an EV, the net pollution reduction will be marginal.
[0] According to the EPA, 29% of greenhouse gases emitted in the USA come from Transportation. Of that, only 58% of that comes from "Light-Duty Vehicles", ie, cars. That means if we replaced all cars with EVs, it would be ~17% reduction in GHG.
Whether or not 17% is "marginal" is somewhat subjective on your definition of the word.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-...
Norway does have a pretty strong grid. It has primarily used electricity for heating, with some wood but not much gas. People are transitioning to heat pumps and improving insulation as well so the load on the grid from heating is actually going down too.
Other countries may eventually need some grid upgrades. But how is that an insurmountable issue? The grid has been upgraded in response to increased demands many times before.
The same battery tech going into EVs is helping improve and stabilise the grid, and helping some people reduce their energy consumption from the grid to near zero with solar+battery storage. So seems like EVs help contribute to the exact kind of R&D needed to take some of the added load off the grid.
Most of the grid will handle it fine. People in very rural areas where it's common to only get 60 amp service might have a problem. But they probably weren't going to get an EV anyways.
You are vastly, vastly underestimating the amount of investment required. It's in the trillions of dollars.
https://electrek.co/2023/11/21/tesla-launches-supercharger-c...
Electric vehicles will add 20% to our electric energy requirements, but a lot less than 20% to our power requirements. Peak power is ~6PM during times of extreme weather. Some cars are being charged at that time, but most are charged overnight.
[1] https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2023-02-07/complaints-ov...
If you want a harder problem, it’s electric building heat in cold climates.
That said my basic calculation for New Zealand is additional 50% is needed. Probably easy peasy if we get over lobby given how much existing hydro we have and capacity for sun and wind.
Using Chinese offshore wind turbine costs my estimate was 1/3rd of some major railway project cost we are considering…