Self Driving Vehicles to the Rescue?

January 17, 2019
water sewer management
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Brett Houser with Greenlots suggests that every electric vehicles pulls as much power as a single family house per day  Ouch!  That was not what you expected right?  That means lots of power plants – upgraded wiring, new poles, new transformers, etc.  Subsides to encourage electric vehicles, but all power consumers pay the cost of upgrades.  J.A. Lesser, notes that the subsidies for electric vehicles primary go to those who can afford electric cars, which are currently high end vehicles, so the benefit translate to the higher income people, vs working people who pay for all power.  The savings in emissions is a question unless power plants become cleaner (a question under the Trump White House).  Otherwise we are simply switching fuels – gasoline for natural gas (at the moment).   While natural gas now exceeds coal as the largest fuel source for power plants, but appears to have peaked at about 33%.  One issue may be that natural gas has priority for heating – some diversions in the winter could pose a challenge if new pipelines are not constructed.  And that has been an ongoing challenge in some communities.

Renewables are the only sector climbing because they are easily placed and can be constructed in small increments, but they are only 12% of total power produced although many electric vehicle supported think solar and EVs are a match.  Time will tell if the battery technology has developed to appoint that is can address the night time concerns with solar electric.

So back to self driving vehicles – how soon is the technology coming?  Hard to say.  Sensors are an issue.  “Seeing” the road lanes is an issue.  Snow, rain, sleet are issues.  Liability is an issue.  Ownership may be an issue if the cost is high.  Who holds the insurance (Warren Buffett has asked this question).  But we sure could get some work done in the self driving vehicle. …

Autonomous Vehicles

January 14, 2019
water sewer management
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One of the quiet issues that was raised during the 2016 election was that there was a goal to have long haul trucking done by autonomous vehicles within 10 years.  Many large companies, including Amazon and Google, plus members of both political parties talked about safety and reduced costs.  Long haul truckers are about 1.3 of the cost for transportation in the US – 10% of the economy. That means some big profits for someone.  Here is a link – https://medium.com/@UberATG/the-future-of-trucking-b3d2ea0d2db9

One of the issues is the age of long haul truckers – they are getting older which increases accident risk. There are over 1 million long haul truckers, which is one of the higher paid jobs for non-college educated people.  So that is a huge hit to working class individuals.  Waymo (a Google company) is leading the way in California after testing in Arizona. Tesla and others are trying out the market.  But in addition to the workers, there are other questions.  First how are they going to run?  They cannot fill up with fuel themselves so that suggests electric vehicles, perhaps with added solar components.  Electric vehicles makes sense as that is easier to operate – like electric trains.  Solar-electric-autonomous – that is the plan it seems.

Electric vehicles are all the rage.  GM will be completely electric by 2022 (a goal anyway).  Tesla is only electric.  Other manufacturers are racing to electric. Volkswagon has a goal to be the world leader by 2022.  Toyota has a goal to be zero emission by 2050.  Governments are feeding the demand.  California leads the way with electric vehicles in the US.  The state has a goal of 5 million by 2030. Ireland, the Netherlands, and Solvenia have 2030 deadlines to end gasoline car sales.  Norway has a 2025 deadline; Sweden 2045.   France and the UK have given automakers a 2040 deadline to end the sale of new gas-powered cars, and Germany may soon follow.  India has a 100 percent electric vehicles, as does China although neither is published. Why?  Electric vehicles will reduce the demands for gasoline, reduce particulates and reduce greenhouse gases.  Right?  Well before we get too carried away all these electric cars begs the question, like all electric vehicles, where does the power come from?

Where the power comes from and how utilities can benefit are subjects to come….