Let’s not shift the blame to electricity, but reduce fossil fuel production by the same amount, which is what’s really “frying the planet”.
Electrification isn’t the problem. Due to efficiency gains, all electrification leads to reduction of carbon footprint, even when the electricity comes from fossil fuels.
Moreover, in the western world almost all newly installed capacity is renewable anyways.
Electricity demand is surging. Well…Duh!
We are seeing a global shift from fossil fuel driven processes to those using electricity.
– ICEs to EVs
– Oil/Gas fired home heating to heat pumps
– Industrial heating processes from gas/oil to heat pumps or synthetic gases (e.g. hydrogen, syngas which take electricity as one of their inputs)
That *electricity* demand is surging does not mean that *energy* demand is surging.
I work for a mid-sized utility. 5 years ago I was working with engineers who specialize in load projections on a project and the topic of load growth came up. They told me and everyone else that loads are projected to stay stable for the foreseeable future. Keep in kind that this was mostly before crypto currency growth and data storage facilities growing. I mentioned what about the EVs? They told me that adoption would be slow and efficiencies gained elsewhere would likely offset the demand that EVs would bring. They mentioned possibly seeing growth near 2050 because of EVs. I mentioned that they must be reading different news sources that I was because I was reading mass adoption by 2030 was likely. They all laughed and mocked the non-engineer.
Who’s laughing now?
85% of new capacity is wind and solar in the USA and solar and batteries are getting cheaper. No problems.
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Let’s not shift the blame to electricity, but reduce fossil fuel production by the same amount, which is what’s really “frying the planet”.
Electrification isn’t the problem. Due to efficiency gains, all electrification leads to reduction of carbon footprint, even when the electricity comes from fossil fuels.
Moreover, in the western world almost all newly installed capacity is renewable anyways.
Electricity demand is surging. Well…Duh!
We are seeing a global shift from fossil fuel driven processes to those using electricity.
– ICEs to EVs
– Oil/Gas fired home heating to heat pumps
– Industrial heating processes from gas/oil to heat pumps or synthetic gases (e.g. hydrogen, syngas which take electricity as one of their inputs)
That *electricity* demand is surging does not mean that *energy* demand is surging.
I work for a mid-sized utility. 5 years ago I was working with engineers who specialize in load projections on a project and the topic of load growth came up. They told me and everyone else that loads are projected to stay stable for the foreseeable future. Keep in kind that this was mostly before crypto currency growth and data storage facilities growing. I mentioned what about the EVs? They told me that adoption would be slow and efficiencies gained elsewhere would likely offset the demand that EVs would bring. They mentioned possibly seeing growth near 2050 because of EVs. I mentioned that they must be reading different news sources that I was because I was reading mass adoption by 2030 was likely. They all laughed and mocked the non-engineer.
Who’s laughing now?
85% of new capacity is wind and solar in the USA and solar and batteries are getting cheaper. No problems.