When will we see the legislation that only solar and wind generation of electric power can be......

When will we see the legislation that "only solar and wing generation of electric power" can be used for EV's?

Just to get in line, when will we be restricted to solar and wind generation of power to recharge our only mandated form of personal transportation?

I do choose to live in the Golden State.  Yes, I can feel it happening. 

 Sure it will happen , not just because of EVs  , 

The problem will still be storing the energy for use at night , 

We will buy Hydropower from the Northwest and the Colorado river dams  for some of it , 

as of 2018 the largest production  percentage in the state  of California with 46% was natural gas. 

But I think you are asking about the future when "all" new cars are EVs  and where will that come from......

No Idea  !

probably will not see that legislation for a long time, probably not in our lifetime IMHO related to power generation.

Even as the power becomes widely available at cheaper prices.. i doubt we'll see legislation force those options to be the only options

Coal power has a large presence and we do have a bunch of nuclear power stations that reliably pump out lots of power.
 

I don't understand why there isn't a push towards nuclear. It's clean, super efficient, and as long as you keep it contained, it isn't any more dangerous than anything else. I guess it's just too scary?

TheRX7Project said:

I don't understand why there isn't a push towards nuclear. It's clean, super efficient, and as long as you keep it contained, it isn't any more dangerous than anything else. I guess it's just too scary?

Yeah, I think it's the scary big boom situation. And the unsolved waste disposal problem. I'd much rather have a couple nuke plants around than all the nasty coal-fired ones.

In reply to TheRX7Project :

Nuclear is too scary and tremendously expensive.

edit: To clarify, I'm not scared of nuclear, just reflecting the attitudes of people who don't like "chemicals."

In reply to j_tso :

The only scary thing about nuclear is our seeming insistence on running old plants that were designed in the 50s. There are better and safer ways now. Mr. Gates talked about it a lot in his Netflix thing. And it's only expensive once. The high efficiency negates that cost fairly quickly from what I understand. 

Already on the way https://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/renewable-portfolio-standards.aspx

Nuclear and offshore wavepowered generators sound more likely for the future to me.

They'd be a hell of a lot cleaner, than current fossil fueled, and more efficient at least. 

I see a big L word standing in the way of any sort of progress on that front though.

Look to France on how to do nuclear. 

 It won't happen. Far more likely that you'll be mandated to have SOME kind of renewable power source and battery setup at your home.

TheRX7Project said:

I don't understand why there isn't a push towards nuclear. It's clean, super efficient, and as long as you keep it contained, it isn't any more dangerous than anything else. I guess it's just too scary?

Hard to make it cost-effective. Uranium is very costly to refine and needs some wild stuff like Hexaflourides.

People's perception doesn't help, though we finally fired up a new one a couple years ago.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I've been out of the industry for a few years,but are you referring to TVA finishing Watts Bar after it being sidetracked decades ago? I helped at the new construction at VC Summer for a bit, but last I heard that had stopped, just like STP. I don't have a clue where the new construction at Vogtle stands, but I thought that was still held up as well?

OP - it's highly unlikely that renewables will ever be "required" for your EV.  Wholesale bulk power is traded via a marketplace and generally the cheapest source wins and that's what will be coming in through your meter.  The type of power sourced will depend on time of day and sun, wind, etc..  Aside from the waste disposal problem with nuclear (which is looking less bad relative to CO2) the cost of nuclear is just too high.  Utility scale long term PPAs (power purchase agreements) for wind and solar have been as low as $.03/kWh recently.  Coal and nuclear are not competitive.  This whole thing is really just a math problem, optimizing various types of wholesale power inputs at their respective costs to provide reliable power for consumers while optimizing profit.

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

In reply to j_tso :

The only scary thing about nuclear is our seeming insistence on running old plants that were designed in the 50s. There are better and safer ways now. Mr. Gates talked about it a lot in his Netflix thing. And it's only expensive once. The high efficiency negates that cost fairly quickly from what I understand. 

Came here to post the Bill Gates thing. I'm not going to pretend that an hour long documentary is enough to convince me it is perfect and everything it is made out to be, but it definitely has me very curious and wondering when it will happen. It seems like a tremendous solution. 

This is a flounder post if I've seen one. 
 

ohh look. I don't like change or the government so I'm going to post some thinly veiled conservative dog whistles. 
 

I'll go back to eating my spotted owl burger now. 

Unlikely to see it outside of  a couple of states with no good place to put a nuclear reactor. 

I still want to see what the cost of a mass produced reactor is compared to the custom jobs that drive up the price past that of power produced by conventional plants. There's an economy of scale to building 1 GW plants instead of 50 MW, but there would be 20 times as many plants built to get that same output which would save money on design and tooling. A 50 MWe plant also generates 200 MW of thermal energy, which is a small enough quantity that it could be used to displace fossil fuel boilers and electric chillers. 

In reply to TheRX7Project :

As constructed and operated in the US right now, it's expensive - six cents per kWh. That's been the sticking point when almost every other energy source either was cheap to begin with (coal), suddenly became cheap (natural gas), or has had new-construction prices fall so rapidly that it's tough to make a profit on already-installed plants with the intermittent rates you can get (wind, solar). 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

This is a flounder post if I've seen one. 
 

ohh look. I don't like change or the government so I'm going to post some thinly veiled conservative dog whistles. 
 

I'll go back to eating my spotted owl burger now. 

Certainly it has the potential to go that way, but so far it hasn't. So let's not try to push it?

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

In reply to j_tso :

The only scary thing about nuclear is our seeming insistence on running old plants that were designed in the 50s. There are better and safer ways now. Mr. Gates talked about it a lot in his Netflix thing. And it's only expensive once. The high efficiency negates that cost fairly quickly from what I understand. 

And therein lies the rub.

The screaming NIMBYs who grew up terrified of 1960s nuclear technology are the very same screaming NIMBYs who are keeping outdated, inefficient 1960s nuclear plants in operation past the end of their service life, by preventing construction of modern, safe, high-efficiency plants.  And the waste they produce is minimal.  Hell, make it into 1-ton slugs and drop them into the Marianas Trench where they can return to the core for recycling.

EVs and high-efficiency nuclear power are like chocolate and peanut butter for emissions.

But nuclear is scary and learning things is hard.  It's easier to just be a screaming NIMBY.

This is an excellent book.  It's 10 or 15 years old at this point but that doesn't really change it.  It was written by a screaming NIMBY who decided to stop doing that and actually educate herself on the facts of nuclear power.  Doing so completely converted her into a supporter.  Highly recommended.

I've heard that we're only 30 years away from Fusion!

In reply to WonkoTheSane (FS) :

I heard the same thing 30 years ago. 

These threads always scream Monty python to me. 

Duke said:

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

In reply to j_tso :

The only scary thing about nuclear is our seeming insistence on running old plants that were designed in the 50s. There are better and safer ways now. Mr. Gates talked about it a lot in his Netflix thing. And it's only expensive once. The high efficiency negates that cost fairly quickly from what I understand. 

And therein lies the rub.

The screaming NIMBYs who grew up terrified of 1960s nuclear technology are the very same screaming NIMBYs who are keeping outdated, inefficient 1960s nuclear plants in operation past the end of their service life, by preventing construction of modern, safe, high-efficiency plants.  And the waste they produce is minimal.  Hell, make it into 1-ton slugs and drop them into the Marianas Trench where they can return to the core for recycling.

EVs and high-efficiency nuclear power are like chocolate and peanut butter for emissions.

But nuclear is scary and learning things is hard.  It's easier to just be a screaming NIMBY.

 

Ironically, the same NIMBY's accept coal plants.  BTW, WRT radiation, coal plants are far worse than nuclear.  But I suspect that is hidden the same way that anti-nuke NINBY's are so easily found.

Same can be said by current NG, since fracking is 1) questionable WRT safety (in all aspects) and 2) not profitable what so ever.  The aid that it gets could easily be directed to nuclear work...  odd that it isn't.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to WonkoTheSane (FS) :

I heard the same thing 30 years ago. 

That's the joke I was going for :)