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If I could afford to, I'd buy an electric car. Tester shouldn't have to justify this to anyone one, particularly other members of the legislature, who are bullying him. Electric cars are a big part of stopping climate change. If climate change isn't stopped, we're all gonna go extinct in a few more generations. Animals can only survive in a narrow temperature band that doesn't evaporate all the water from the land surfaces. The fossil fuel lobbyists are literally advocating slow genocide, and are undoubtedly behind the bullying. And they'd just call it bread and circuses.
Where I draw the line is environmentalist jackasses who are out there hating on the Prius (ACEEE's greenest car of 2024), which would extend the climate crisis.
You guys are fucking up the #1 car in today's market for fixing climate issues. Because environmentalism isn't actually about what's best for the environment, its its own insane cult that doesn't actually calculate out the full issues associated with EVs.
Hint: EVs that charge overnight do not use solar power for charging. Think about that for a sec. Its all Nat. Gas in practice. Rerun the calculations and you'll find that Prius burns fewer fossil fuels than most EVs for the typical American.
So stop fucking around with useful cars (like the Prius) and turn your attention to dumbass vehicles like the Hummer EV (which is so big and heavy that it burns more fossil fuels than a damn Corolla or Civic). EVs aren't the answer, they've already been corrupted by the corporations to have insane designs. You need to calculate every car on a car-by-car basis before making large scale environmental policies.
And if you have dumbass policies (like "Advanced Clean Cars II") purposefully leave out highly environentally-friendly vehicles like the Prius, well... guess what? You're part of the problem, not part of the solution.
If I had an ev it would. Because I have solar pannels on my rooftop and my annual energy usage is net negative.
A lot of people have solar panels. And in MN, 54% of our energy is carbon neutral (so, not “effectively NG”,) and the rest of the nation is 41%.
Shill harder.
That's not how that works. Natural Gas plants turn on at night to supply your electricity usage at night.
No solar panel is working at night.
No you? You're trying to pretend that solar power somehow is supplying energy to your nighttime car charges. Do you even know what the sun is or how solar panels work?
Unless you live near a pumped-hydro station, you aren't getting green energy at night. Your best bet is nuclear, but for some reason a bunch of asshole environmentalists have hampered our nuclear rollout leading to this unpleasant situation where we have to rely upon natural gas more.
/golfclap
I might use NG at night. (I don’t necessarily. My local power is wind, then either NG or Nuclear, which ever is cheaper.)
But my net negative power usage from the grid means that I’m using less energy than I feed in when it isn’t shinning out.
I use 65% of the power I produce, and the excess is fed into the system. That’s annually. So while yes I draw at night, I’m generating enough power during the daytime that it’s more (significantly) more than I use at night. (Moreover, the rates for my usage are less than the rates I get paid for power during the daytime.)
45% of my power generation contributes to that 54% carbon neutral sources in MN.
So, it. Balances out. (And in the near future I’ll get a residential battery for night. Those are freaking expensive, though.)
Grid scale batteries do not exist yet, outside of pumped hydro. And honestly, they might never exist (Sodium Batteries in 2 or 3 years are our best bet at grid-scale energy, but maybe that's not good enough. We dont know because they don't exist yet).
No. If there's no grid energy storage mechanism, then the power is wasted during the day, and the natural gas spins up at night.
Apologies if you're not aware that the grid isn't a magical energy storage device. But... it isn't. The tech for energy storage does not feasibly exist yet on any large scale.
Wind is an option but only in windy areas and windy times
I wouldn't bother. When battery storage tech becomes feasible, the utility companies will buy it for the whole grid. Residential batteries are just for those who are tricking themselves into thinking these things are feasible.
The #1 "battery" is pumped Hydro right now. No joke. Running water up a hill with excess electricity absolutely works as an energy storage mechanism. The best battery techs will be exceptionally large systems (Pumped Hydro. Compressed Air, etc. etc.) that take advantage of these effects.
Even "Wind" energy is actually an energy storage solution due to the massive momentum the wind turbine arms have. So unlike Solar, a lot of Wind plants self-regulate and self-store their energy.
Wind turbines generate the most energy at night, they actually complement solar quite well.
Alas, the most problematic part of the energy curve is the "Duck Curve", of which only natural gas has been identified as a solution so far.
The setting of the sun does not coincide with higher winds. The elevated winds are deep at night when everyone's asleep but the grid is actually 1/2 power usage IIRC compared to daytime usage. Not really the 7pm period where solar grossly diminishes (sun is low enough that solar barely contributes anymore), but the day is hot enough that Air Conditioners run, and everyone is home doing laundry or other energy-costly tasks since they're still awake.