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After Rising For 100 Years, Electricity Demand is Flat (vox.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The US electricity sector is in a period of unprecedented change and turmoil. Renewable energy prices are falling like crazy. Natural gas production continues its extraordinary surge. Coal, the golden child of the current administration, is headed down the tubes. In all that bedlam, it's easy to lose sight of an equally important (if less sexy) trend: Demand for electricity is stagnant. Thanks to a combination of greater energy efficiency, outsourcing of heavy industry, and customers generating their own power on site, demand for utility power has been flat for 10 years, and most forecasts expect it to stay that way. The die was cast around 1998, when GDP growth and electricity demand growth became "decoupled." This historic shift has wreaked havoc in the utility industry in ways large and small, visible and obscure. Some of that havoc is high-profile and headline-making, as in the recent requests from utilities (and attempts by the Trump administration) to bail out large coal and nuclear plants.
When you switch to more energy efficient products, this is a natural side effect. EVs will change that obviously.
...but in developing countries.
While TFA did point out, "US", it seems rather pointless because the demand, and thus the generation, and thus the pollution is occurring overseas.Just because it's not here doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It's like you cleaned up your back yard by throwing all the trash over the fence. Coming soon, we will be bitching at our neighbors about all the trash in their yard.
So before the Enviro's celebrate, they should consider that they have successfully pushed the pollution into countries that are ill equipped to handle it from regulatory and societal standpoints, yet the US and other western countries are still benefiting from it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What is NOT increasing, is the demand for UTILITIES electricity. That has been flat for some time depending on the state. If you are in a state that fights against Solar/Wind, then utility demand continues.
However, what is missing is that this is about to change in a HUGE way. In particular, EVs will be coming on very strong esp with Commercial trucking. While cars will outsell the trucks, the trucks are ran 5-10x as much . As such, within 5 years, these will put a huge demand on electricity. Worse, it will not be a simple increase in electricity but will be heavy spikes in demand.
It is for exactly this reason that we need base-load powers, such as nuclear.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The price on LED lighting has come down so much, that I have just finished converting my entire house to LED lighting. It has made a big difference in my electric bill. Also big power sucking CRT TVs are being replaced rapidly with LED backlit flat screens.
I would expect the electric use to start a downward trend from this point.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
Crypto mining heats my garage in the winter.
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...but in developing countries.
While TFA did point out, "US", it seems rather pointless because the demand, and thus the generation, and thus the pollution is occurring overseas.Just because it's not here doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It's like you cleaned up your back yard by throwing all the trash over the fence. Coming soon, we will be bitching at our neighbors about all the trash in their yard.
So before the Enviro's celebrate, they should consider that they have successfully pushed the pollution into countries that are ill equipped to handle it from regulatory and societal standpoints, yet the US and other western countries are still benefiting from it.
This is a *very* interesting development, for the following reason:
All modern theories of economics ("schools of thought" as they are called) assume infinite demand, either by infinitely increasing population or infinitely increasing demands per person, or both.
So for example, theory has it that you can double your sales income if you double your sales outlets - by opening stores in other states, for instance. Problem with this is that the world is finite and eventually you reach diminishing returns. Many companies found this out the hard way when they started selling through WalMart - once your jeans (or pickles) are sold at Walmart, you're done. You can no longer increase sales *at all*.
We know that population begins to level off and decline when countries become modernized, and now it looks like demand itself has a fixed upper limit.
If consumption is fixed, then lots of macro economic theory is simply incorrect. If efficiency per-worker reaches a level where half the available workers can fulfill the demands of the population, what do you do with the other half that can't find work?
It's these sorts of observations and extrapolations that lead people to think of possible solutions like reduced-hours work week (for the same pay), or UBI.
The average US household drives 20,000 miles a year. If all of that were electric, it would be roughly 6000 kWh per year, or about half the average total consumption of a US household. EVs will very soon be as convenient as gasoline cars and much cheaper overall to drive, so I would think adoption could happen quite rapidly and would sop up any excess electric power demand. It is a perfect match for solar energy because the cars can be charged anywhere anytime.
Electricity is the key to de-carbonization over the next few decades. The easy part is carbon-free electricity generation. As noted, renewable prices are in free-fall. I've been a big nuke-booster for decades, but even that option may not be needed, so low are wind and solar prices getting to be. (We need a major new grid to make that work, of course: only across a large continent is the wind always blowing somewhere... Also, we need some power storage; people had been thinking mountain lakes, pumps and turbines, but the Australian mega-battery has me wondering...)
Then there's transportation, and battery improvements would indicate we might be able to replace most cars and light trucks with electric; trains can be electric.
And there's home heating. Heat pumps have gotten so good we could ditch our entire piping infrastructure that moves, basically, an explosive around the city into every home. That's been a nutty idea since it started, and now there's more reason than ever to move off of it.
We can eliminate 90% of natural gas, 90% of gasoline, half of diesel, half of avgas, with technologies that now exist, given only determination and, well, a huge pile of money. We'd have to build a lot of infrastructure, from that trillion-dollar grid, a few trillion in renewable power plants, to a zillion changing stations to an all-electric train system. But it's engineering and accounting, not new science.
Even the staggering costs are not that daunting, really. Yes, you're talking a whole year's GDP for the US ($13 T) but that would be spread over about 25 years, and most of it would be private investments into utilities and trains and private vehicle purchases. [No, I don't know *how* you get 100 million households to all convert to heat pumps at $10K each when they hated giving up light bulbs; I'm just saying the engineering and money are do-able. ]
And it would all depend on using a LOT more electricity instead of combustible gases and fluids.
The only reason Trump won is because Democrats underestimated the raw hatred people have of Hillary. I am a liberal and I can't stand her. She stands for nothing but power for herself.
Democratic leadership is just as corrupt and incompetent as Republican.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Electricity use has plateaued because the biggest industrial users of electricity have moved overseas. This includes the manufacture of aluminum and steel....
U.S. steel production has fluctuated in the broad range of 6 million and 8 million tons a year for 35 years and has been pretty much level since recovery from the Great Recession. U.S. primary production of aluminum however has dropped sharply, the large majority of aluminum production is secondary (recycled) aluminum, which uses much less electricity (and even the primary production consumption per ton has been cut with superior technology).
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Ha. Ha. Ha.
You're funny.
The Russian economy is dependent upon oil revenue. Putin's power is helped by higher oil prices so Putin would be far more interested in preventing fracking than just about anything else that could be promoted (or discouraged) by a US President.
Which of the two candidates was for fracking (which brings prices of oil down)? Hillary or Trump?
Whatever the case may be about the environmental consequences of fracking Hillary and her supporters were (and are) dead set against it. Trump and his supporters tend to be for it.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
can someone mod this comment up?
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She stands for nothing but power for herself. So let's just let the other candidate roll in, who is even worse in that regard. Not only does he want power for himself, he only wants power for the sake of enriching himself. Yeah. Very clever of you to let the worser person win. That'll teach 'em.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
The only reason Trump won is because Democrats underestimated the raw hatred people have of Hillary. I am a liberal and I can't stand her. She stands for nothing but power for herself.
Democratic leadership is just as corrupt and incompetent as Republican.
I would have preferred Sanders but the fact is that Clinton got many more votes.
Someone figured out a way to score a strategic win. Trump didn't think that up - he doesn't have the brains.
Conway might have been cunning enough but the likely strategist is Manafort.
Or perhaps someone closer to Putin.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body