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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.
...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.
When you switch to more energy efficient products, this is a natural side effect. EVs will change that obviously.
But with a corresponding drop in demand for fossil fuels at the point of consumption.
Of course fossil fuels will still be used a lot for generation of electricity for EVs, but if renewables are actually dropping in price then that has to trend downward.
Which, of course, will cause the price of gasoline to crash because of the resulting glut.
The thing to watch for is if gasoline prices drop because of that then ICE cars become more cost-competitive against EVs than they were before. If that is true then EV cars need to become more cost-efficient than they currently are. And for that, Li-ION batteries have to both improve and drop in price.
Maybe Elon is on to something.
...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 charging time problem is one of charging cable size.
You can get around that by upping the voltage. Tesla Superchargers use 400 volts.
Supercapacitors do shit for that issue.
The biggest problem with super-caps is energy density, currently less than a tenth that of lithium batteries.
that sounds like the lead-in to an Elon #meToo moment.
Which, of course, will cause the price of gasoline to crash because of the resulting glut.
What glut? EV's driving down petrol sales will be a gradual process, and vehicle fuel plants shift production on a monthly basis. Gasoline production will be adjusted (as is true now) so that there is a razor thin margin of excess supply.
Liquid fossil fuels is a world-wide industry in every respect (production, refining, consumption) and prices are set at the global level and on a world-wide scale U.S. shifts to EVs will have a small effect. And any drop in primary resource prices suppresses high cost fuel production (fracking, tar sands) which compensates significantly.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
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.
supercapacitors at present are more sci-fi than fact if they are thought of as competing (in capacity) to batteries.
The formula for a capacitor has in its formula A/d
A is the area (of the plates)
d is the distance (between the plates)
so a small distance and big area is how to make super capacitors. The problem comes when you want to charge the capacitor because the d distance sets the limit of the voltage (due to the breakdown the the diametric, which is whatever material is between the plates) the charge stored on a capacitor is
0.5 (CV^2) so the charge is proportional to the square of the voltage meaning you need lots of voltage to get a big charge (or amount of stored energy) so what makes the capacitor value large makes the amount of charge you can store small. This is the issue currently with super capacitors just because of the basic physics of capacitors. So unless an amazing dielectric is found that has super incredibly high breakdown voltage and is easy to form onto the plates we probably will have to keep looking to batteries.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
can someone mod this comment up?
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
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.