This should boost EV sales

First California wanted to force people to quit using gasoline to power their cars. Use the electric grid instead! Then it became apparent that an already stressed grid would get worse if California continued to close nuclear and fossil-fuel power plants, while at the same time encouraging drivers to charge up their EVs on the grid. The answer is breathtaking in its brilliance: if the grid is stressed, run the EV-charging stations backwards, so the EV batteries are drawn down to support the grid they're supposed to be using to charge up on. Apparently some EV charging systems already work as a two-way device, the idea being that owners might want to use them as emergency power for their households. The new idea is to require all EV charging systems to work that way, and not for the benefit of the owners' households but for the whole grid instead.
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6 comments:

  1. Thos.2:45 PM

    You can pour coffee back and forth between the your mug and the coffee maker as many times as you want, PROVIDED:
    a.) you never drink any of it; and
    b.) somebody bothered to make some in the first place.

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  2. Grim5:08 PM

    A friend of mine who builds electric motorcycles and bikes loves this idea. He thinks it’ll do a ton to improve the stability of urban grids.

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  3. douglas7:40 PM

    They've been devolving governmental responsibilities for infrastructure back onto citizens in California for a while now- this is just another step, albeit a pretty bold one.
    The push for solar panels and requiring first stubbing in for them, and now in some places requiring them outright in new construction is one example. Requiring stormwater runoff be treated on site rather than directed to storm drains, as was previously required was another.

    I suspect the trend will continue. Possibly until people start wondering what's the point the government at all, as they also fail on job one- public safety and order. Perhaps it's a good thing after all.

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  4. Texan9910:58 AM

    I'm amused to see the idea of requiring people to deal with their own stormwater runoff. In some states--Colorado, maybe?--I've heard people aren't allowed to catch their own rainwater in cisterns. It's seen as an unlawful diversion of a public resource, apparently. The trick in situations like this is to lurch wildly from prohibition to mandating: bonus points if the government alternates unpredictably between the two.

    I never let any stormwater leave my property if I can help it. I catch as much as I can in my cistern and as much of the rest as I can in my pond or my groundwater. I have a standing offer to neighbors to divert their stormwater into my pond any time they want to dig the ditches pointing this way, or authorize the county to do so.

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  5. Dad292:45 PM

    Grim, your EV-Bike maker should check his watch. You see, while peak demand for electricity usually occurs during the DAY, fully-charged F-150 batteries are not available until sometime after midnight, and then only until 6 AM or so. Would a 50-mile one-way commuter give up getting home to "save the grid" for Newsom?

    Be honest.....

    There is a reason that Walt Disney built Fantasyland in California.

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  6. Assistant Village Idiot10:23 PM

    I feel like I should have been able to predict this, especially after this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q

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