It's been quietly discussed among electric utilities that increasing amounts of distributed solar power and other renewable energy may destroy their business model.
The worry is that if consumers can generate much or all of their own electricity, the utilities lose the revenue from selling them power--while continuing to shoulder the substantial costs of maintaining the electric distribution network as a backup.
Meanwhile, while plug-in electric cars on U.S. roads number less than 200,000 today--out of about 250 million vehicles--the miles they travel on grid energy stored in their batteries eliminate the demand for gasoline.
And many electric-car owners turn out to have solar panels on their homes.
Buying an electric car may even increase interest in clean energy, as owners start to think about "free travel" using electricity from solar panels (aside from the substantial costs of the panels themselves, of course).
Now Tony Seba, an entrepreneur and Stanford University lecturer in continuing studies, is working on a new book in which he predicts that the cost of distributed solar energy will fall so low by around 2030 that it will make electricity from fossil fuels essentially redundant.
Equally radically, he says, plug-in electric cars will do the same to the oil industry--on roughly the same schedule.
Seba argues that the cost of both photovoltaic solar panels and large-scale batteries for energy storage in electric cars will continue to fall, to the point where using them for both energy generation and transportation is significantly cheaper than extracting and transportation carbon-based fuels to be burned.
MORE: How Much And How Fast Will Electric-Car Battery Costs Fall?
Demand for oil as a feedstock for chemical industries is likely to continue, of course, so eliminating the extraction, refining, and transportation of oil and natural gas altogether is unlikely to happen on anything like that schedule.
Still, it's an appealing vision, and the prospect of carbon-free energy and transportation for even some fraction of global demand is likely to be welcomed by anyone who accepts the scientific consensus around climate change caused by man-made carbon emissions.
The working title of Seba's upcoming book is "Disrupting Energy: How Silicon Valley is making coal, nuclear, oil and gas obsolete." It's not yet available for pre-order, but you have to admit it sounds intriguing.
What do you think? Will we see the decline of hydrocarbon-based transportation and the legacy electric-utility industry within your lifetime?
Only if you like a driving range of 10 miles without the heater on in winter...
No.
Ford says no.
Nope
Possibly.. give it another 100 to 150 years.
I’m sure they were asking that question in the 1900s, when electric cars were outselling internal- and external-combustion cars.
Not with today’s technology. Battery capacity, recharge time, and capacity to keep recharges over its lifetime are issues.
Oh hell Seba has been trying this push for all too long. The simple answer to the question is NO
As long as 95% of people are not allowed to own a vehicle maybe
“Seba argues that the cost of both photovoltaic solar panels and large-scale batteries for energy storage in electric cars will continue to fall, to the point where using them for both energy generation and transportation is significantly cheaper than extracting and transportation carbon-based fuels to be burned.”
If it does, cool. But I bet the “cost” he is using includes subsidies.
It might happen. But not in my lifetime and probably not in my kids lifetime.
I read a report the other night on the global supply of lithium to make LiIon batteries. If Tesla makes 100,000 cars per year, they pretty much exhaust the world’s production capacity of lithium. The richest lithium resources are in an ecologically sensitive area in south America which will be completely destroyed if production ramps up.
The dirty little secret of EVs.
Chemical fuels that burn oxygen beat any kind of battery all hollow right now. I wish engineers well in developing better batteries, but they are probably going to be finicky.
There is some potential market for hybrids, combo-cars that use electrical components together with generator-driving engines which are carefully tuned to do well driving the generator rather than being the prime mover of a mechanical transmission. That could squeeze a few more MPG out of gasoline and diesel fuels. Robustness is the key to widespread acceptability. Costing a king’s ransom to fix is not a way to sell cars in the long run.
When the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine, wind and solar power can’t make hay ...
Never happen !!!
Next up, February, when I am "used" to some frigid weather (this year I fear it like no other).
i don’t accept climate change caused by man and won’t have antything that doesn’t run on gasoline and have over 300 HP.
many Chevy Volt owners report going
1000.plus miles on a 10 gallon tank.
The biggest problem with solar power is that consumers are far away from best source, the deserts. Transmission losses and infrastructure costs are the main culprits. Fossil fuel power plants are located close to population clusters.
No.