At Earth Day climate summit, Biden promises 50% reduction in US greenhouse emissions.
If Gas Cars Are Banned, Can The Grid Handle Electric Cars?
Battling for Batteries: Two Korean companies court Washington
BY Reuters
— 8:53 AM ET 03/17/2021
By David Shepardson and Ben Klayman
WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) – When U.S. President Joe Biden flies to Georgia Friday, he will land in the middle of an increasingly politicized battle between two South Korean electric vehicle battery makers and the state and federal politicians who want to prevent their feud from costing American jobs.
The companies, LG Chem and rival SK Innovation Co, are trying to take advantage of past and promised U.S. investments, and ties to politicians in Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee, to win the end game in a long-running legal dispute over intellectual property and access to the growing U.S. electric vehicle market.
The Biden Administration, through the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, may ultimately pick a winner by the early April deadline. Both declined to comment.
The global auto industry is racing to develop EVs. Batteries made by LG, SK and other suppliers are critical to meeting the target of building zero-emission vehicles.
Georgia is the center of action. Unless the White House intervenes, SK says a Feb. 10 ruling by the International Trade Commission would force it to halt construction on a $2.6-billion factory in a state whose two newly-elected Democratic Senators are the linchpin of Biden’s slim Democratic Congressional majority.
Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock told Reuters he has spoken with the Biden administration and hopes a deal can be reached. “I am working to make sure Georgians will benefit from the jobs they were promised.”
LG wrote to Warnock, arguing SK is “holding the people of Georgia hostage in a last-ditch lobbying effort to avoid settling.” LG said, if SK abandoned the plant, LG “will do our best to fill in any voids.”
Concern in Georgia is bipartisan. On Friday, Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, urged Biden to overturn the decision, noting SK’s plant will employ nearly 2,600 people in the largest foreign investment in Georgia history. “Simply put: the livelihoods of thousands of Georgians are now in your hands.”
BATTLEGROUND STATES
LG’s political allies warn that reversing the ITC could hurt workers in Michigan and Ohio, also key political battleground states.
LG is nearing completion of a cell manufacturing plant in Ohio with General Motors ( GM ) and sources said they are in talks to build a second facility in Tennessee.
“LG Chem’s stolen intellectual property should not be used to directly compete against Ohio workers at the new factory or the Ohio- and Michigan-based businesses in the factory’s supply chain,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in a March 8 letter to Biden.
In Tennessee, home to SK customer Volkswagen’s U.S. assembly plant, state economic development chief Bob Rolfe said politics and jobs take center stage.
“You can certainly weigh the political side of this and then you also need to weigh the impact to the economy,” said Rolfe, who declined to support either battery maker.
LG said it plans to invest more than $4.5 billion in U.S. battery production over the next four years and build at least two plants, including possibly in Georgia. LG insists it can handle the auto industry’s battery needs if SK abandons its Georgia plant.
SK said LG’s spending plans are meant to sway Biden and added it would be impossible for LG to handle the VW and Ford Motor Co ( F ) contracts.
“Georgians know the difference between our real commitment to the state and LG’s paper promises,” an SK spokeswoman said.
SK warned Chinese manufacturers may replace lost battery capacity, striking a chord with some lawmakers sensitive to ceding ground to a major trade rival.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Toyota Warns Tesla’s Gas Car Phase-Out Goals Must Overcome Huge Challenges.
Toyota has no love for pure-electric cars, hence it falling out with Tesla Motors and the subsequent war of words between the two. Once again, Toyota is declaring that electricity isn’t the fuel of the future, reiterating its belief that hydrogen is the way to go.
This time around, the chief engineer for the Mirai fuel cell car, Yoshikazu Tanaka, made some controversial assertions about why battery-electric cars won’t work in large quantities. Reuters Canada reports that Tanaka said that too many cars charging up will overload the power grid, which in turn will cause problems for households and businesses.
What about rapid battery charging technology? Tanaka said it wouldn’t help, because even if you could charge up an electric car in a mere twelve minutes, it would probably be “using up electricity required to power 1,000 houses.”
Tanaka and his employer aren’t anti electric cars, but instead see hydrogen as a more practical fuel source. The only way they’d word is if virtually all electric vehicles were charged at night and weren’t driven very far each day. In reality, some people must drive long distances every day, and not everyone has the ability to charge their car nightly.
Interestingly enough, no mention was made by Tanaka about what role solar panels would play in helping keep up with daytime energy demands.
As Toyota is pushing hydrogen vehicles such as the Mirai, it’s meeting considerable resistance from electric car fans. The company has been accused of “knowing” that electric cars are better, but being part of a worldwide conspiracy, among other outlandish things.
Toyota is an incredibly powerful force in the automotive industry, having single handedly jump started the hybrid powertrain revolution. Now that it’s putting its full weight behind hydrogen fuel cell technology, the question is when not if such vehicles will become common on U.S. roads. Just how mainstream they’ll eventually be is still up in the air.
An important milestone was achieved by Toyota recently as the Mirai was the first fuel cell car to pace a NASCAR race.
Toyota Mirai, the world’s first hydrogen-fueled vehicle has paced a NASCAR race
Electric Cars Will Challenge State Power Grids
A Seattle City Light vehicle charges at one of the utility’s new electric vehicle charging stations in the city’s SoDo neighborhood.
Toyota United States electric grid electric cars.
Emeka Anyanwu, energy innovation and resources officer for seattle city light, – Bing video
speaks at an event unveiling the utility’s new electric vehicle charging stations in the city’s SoDo neighborhood.
SEATTLE — When Seattle City Light unveiled five new electric vehicle charging stations last month in an industrial neighborhood south of downtown, the electric utility wasn’t just offering a new spot for drivers to fuel up. It also was creating a way for the utility to figure out how much more power it might need as electric vehicles catch on.
Seattle aims to have nearly a third of its residents driving electric vehicles by 2030. Washington state is No. 3 in the nation in per-capita adoption of plug-in cars, behind California and Hawaii. But as Washington and other states urge their residents to buy electric vehicles — a crucial component of efforts to reduce carbon emissions — they also need to make sure the electric grid can handle it.
The average electric vehicle requires 30 kilowatt-hours to travel 100 miles — the same amount of electricity an average American home uses each day to run appliances, computers, lights and heating and air conditioning.
A U.S. Department of Energy study found that increased electrification across all sectors of the economy could boost national consumption by as much as 38% by 2050, in large part because of electric vehicles. The environmental benefit of electric cars depends on the electricity being generated by renewables.
So far, states predict they will be able to sufficiently boost power production. But whether electric vehicles will become an asset or a liability to the grid largely depends on when drivers charge their cars.
Electricity demand fluctuates throughout the day; demand is higher during daytime hours, peaking in the early evening. If many people buy electric vehicles and mostly try to charge right when they get home from work — as many currently do — the system could get overloaded or force utilities to deliver more electricity than they’re currently capable of producing.
In California, for example, the worry is not so much with the state’s overall power capacity, but rather with the ability to quickly ramp up production when demand is high, said Sandy Louey, media relations manager for the California Energy Commission, in an email. About 150,000 electric vehicles were sold in California in 2018 — 8% of all state car sales.
The state projects that electric vehicles will consume 5.4% of the state’s electricity, or 17,000 gigawatt-hours, by 2030.
Responding to the growth in electric vehicles will present unique challenges for each state. A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin estimated the amount of electricity that would be required if every car on the road transitioned to electric. Wyoming, for instance, would need to nudge up its electricity production only 17%, while Maine would have to produce 55% more.
Efficiency Maine, a state trust that oversees energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction programs, offers rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles, part of state efforts to incentivize growth.
“We’re certainly mindful that if those projections are right, then there will need to be more supply,” said Michael Stoddard, the program’s executive director. “But it’s going to unfold over a period of the next 20 years. If we put our minds to it and plan for it, then we should be able to do it.”
A November report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy found that there has been almost no increase in electricity demand nationwide over the past 10 years, while capacity has grown an average of 12 gigawatts per year (1 GW can power more than half a million homes). That means energy production could climb at a similar rate and still meet even the most aggressive increase in electric vehicles, with proper planning.
Charging Times Matter
Charging during off-peak hours would not only allow many electric vehicles to be added to the roads, but also allow utilities to get more use out of power plants that currently run only during the limited peak times.
Seattle City Light and others are looking at various ways to promote charging during ideal times. One method is time-of-day rates. For the Seattle chargers unveiled last month, users will pay 31 cents per kWh during peak daytime hours and 17 cents during off-peak hours. The utility will monitor use at its charging stations to see how effective the rates are at shifting charging to more favorable times.
The utility also is working on a pilot program to study charging behavior at home. And it’s partnering with customers such as King County Metro that are electrifying large vehicle fleets to make sure they have both the infrastructure and charging patterns to integrate smoothly.
“Traditionally, our utility approach is to meet the load demand,” said Emeka Anyanwu, energy innovation and resources officer for Seattle City Light.
Instead, he said, the utility is working with customers to see whether they can use existing assets without the need for additional investment.
Numerous analysts say that approach is crucial.
“Even if there’s an overall increase in consumption, it really matters when that occurs,” said Sally Talberg, head of the Michigan Public Service Commission, which oversees the state’s utilities. “The encouragement of off-peak charging and other technology solutions that could come to bear could offset any negative impact.”
One of those solutions is smart charging, a system in which vehicles are plugged in but don’t charge until they receive a signal from the grid that demand has tapered off a sufficient amount. This is often paired with a lower rate for drivers who use it. Several smart charging pilot programs are being conducted by utilities, though it has not yet been phased in widely.
Utility officials say the technology will be ready by the time widespread purchases of electric vehicles make it necessary.
In Colorado, both time-of-day rates and smart charging will be part of the state’s approach, said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office.
“There’s a broad consensus that EVs will need to be on time-of-use rates,” Toor said. “It will be easy for people to program their vehicle so they come home, plug it in and it doesn’t actually come on until the electricity gets cheap at 9 p.m.”
Some utilities say localized infrastructure upgrades may be necessary if, for example, one neighborhood or city has a particularly high number of electric vehicles.
“We’re looking at whether there will be enough capacity, but also from distribution planning at the neighborhood level to make sure we’re not getting overloaded circuits,” Talberg said.
Welcoming Growth
In many places, the increased electricity demand from electric vehicles is seen as a benefit to utilities and ratepayers. In the Northwest, electricity consumption has remained relatively stagnant since 2000, despite robust population growth and development. That’s because increasing urbanization and building efficiency have driven down electricity needs.
Electric vehicles could help push electricity consumption closer to utilities’ capacity for production. That would bring in revenue for the providers, which would help defray the costs for maintaining that capacity, lowering rates for all customers.
“Having EV loads is welcome, because it’s environmentally cleaner and helps sustain revenues for utilities,” said Massoud Jourabchi, manager of economic analysis for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which develops power plans for the region.
Colorado also is working to promote electric cars, with the aim of putting 940,000 on the road by 2030. The state has adopted California’s zero-emission vehicles mandate, which requires automakers to reach certain market goals for their sales of cars that don’t burn fossil fuels, while extending tax credits for the purchase of such cars, investing in charging stations and electrifying state fleets.
Auto dealers have opposed the mandate, saying it infringes on consumer freedom.
“We think it should be a customer choice, a consumer choice and not a government mandate,” said Tim Jackson, president and CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.
Jackson also said that there’s not yet a strong consumer appetite for electric vehicles, meaning that manufacturers that fail to sell the mandated number of emission-free vehicles would be required to purchase credits, which he thinks would drive up the price of their other models.
Republicans in the state have registered similar concerns, saying electric vehicle adoption should take place based on market forces, not state intervention.
While Colorado’s goal is primarily focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it will have additional benefits for utilities and their customers, Toor said.
“The benefit will come from the fact that you’re adding a meaningful amount of demand,” he said. “Each EV in Colorado will create $600 over its lifetime in economic benefits for other utility ratepayers.”
And in California, electric cars may provide a market for surplus renewable energy production when demand is low. Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, is working to install 7,500 chargers in its service area.
Cars Give Back
Many in the utility community are excited about the potential for electric cars to serve as battery storage for the grid. Vehicle-to-grid technology, known as V2G, would allow cars charging during the day to take on surplus power from renewable energy sources.
Then, during peak demand times, electric vehicles would return some of that stored energy to the grid. As demand tapers off in the evening, the cars would be able to recharge.
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) describes a system in which plug-in electric vehicles, such as battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV) or hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), communicate with the power grid to sell demand response services by either returning electricity to the grid or by throttling their charging rate. V2G storage capabilities can enable EVs to store and discharge electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, with output that fluctuates depending on weather and time of day.
V2G could be especially beneficial – Bing if used by heavy-duty fleets, such as school buses or utility vehicles. Those fleets would have substantial battery storage and long periods where they’re idle, such as evenings and weekends — and even longer periods like summer and the holiday season when school is out. The batteries on a bus, Jourabchi noted, could store as much as 10 times the electricity needed to power a home for a day.
A Regional Push to Clean Up Cars Trucks and Mass Transit | The Pew Charitable Trusts (pewtrusts.org)
At Earth Day climate summit, Biden promises 50% reduction in US greenhouse emissions (msn.com)
The constitution continues to be trampled on by the very people who swore to uphold it and yet nothing happens to them, it’s absolutely disgusting.
Theodor Geisel (Dr. Suess) Did you know Dr. Suess has a history in the military? He volunteered with the U.S Army in the midst of his children’s author fame. He wrote satirical cartoons about Adolf Hitler and Charles Lindbergh. Theodor Geisel was very strongly opposed to the racial policies of Adolf Hitler. After the outbreak of WWII he joined the campaign to persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to give full support to the Allies.
Theodore Geisel (Dr. Suess) adolf hitler images
Biden didn’t say he would protect us from enemies Foreign and abroad 🙁
Joe Biden takes the oath of office
Kamala Harris sworn in as vice president | ABC News
I will try and understand you, if you try and understand me. 11:11
Come together with my people.
The Beatles – Come Together
So Will I (100 Billion X) – Hillsong United.