Like everyone, I want clean energy. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford an EV (I’m on my third Tesla; happy owner since 2015).
BUT I am extremely concerned that we are destroying the resilience of our energy grid. Case in point was the Texas cold snap the other year.
The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine and hailstorms and tornadoes happen.
I’m extremely concerned that situations like occurred in Texas, and brownouts like have become common in California, are going to become the rule rather than the exception.
It’s not just about creature comfort. People tend to die in cold spells when heat is not available. And if we’re all driving electric but there is no charging available, then food can’t get to stores, and people can’t get to stores to buy food, and DoorDash cannot bring food to you, and you go hungry.
The bottom line is that you cannot replace fossil fuel energy with green energy unless you have truly massive power storage, which we don’t. You can ADD green energy to fossil fuel without reducing resilience, until you start turning off the fossil fuel plants. Plus fossil fuel plant generation capacity is relatively inelastic; you have to plan ahead for capacity increases (eg increase deliveries of fossil fuel, which means increasing production of fossil fuel, etc.). You can’t just “turn on” a coal plant when it gets cold overnight or you have a week of rain or a hailstorm takes out a solar farm.