Australia is running out of electricity to charge electric cars, and they’re only 0.9% of cars on the road

EV fast charging is not so fast.

By Jo Nova

No one saw this car crash coming?

EV’s represent just 0.9% of all cars on the road in Australia but plans to install fast chargers are already grinding to a crawl. Last year, Ampol was planning to build 180 EV charging bays by the end of the year. Instead it’s proved difficult to even reach half that target. Eight months after they were supposed to have 180 in action they’ve reached 92.

Just throw money…

A mere 3 weeks ago Ampol announced that thanks to a $100 million dollar grant from the Australian government they would install more than 200 new fast chargers at Ampol’s national network of petrol stations this year. But presumably after making a few phone calls they’ve realized it’s not going to happen. (You’d think they might have made the calls before putting out the press release? Or the Minister might have phoned a friend before tossing $100 million to the wind?)

Power grid foils Ampol’s big EV charger plans

Ben Potter and Simon Evans, Australian Financial Review

Ampol, one of the country’s largest petrol retailers, has dialled back plans to triple the number of electric vehicle chargers because of power grid limitations in a blow to government hopes of pushing motorists towards cleaner cars in big numbers by 2030.

The company’s chief executive, Matt Halliday, said it would not be possible to expand the number of charging bays from 92 to 300 by the end of this year because of difficulties connecting chargers to the grid which is already struggling to cope with an influx of renewable energy generation.

In March, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government would spend $60 million helping car dealerships install chargers on sales lots.

[As] much as we spend a lot of time talking about generation, firming and transmission infrastructure, the last mile distribution grid is not really built for large-scale electrification, despite the best will that the players have to try and make it happen,” Mr Halliday added. “There are a lot of constraints that need to be worked through.”

These people are not good with numbers. A fast charger needs 300 kilowatts, and if there are three car charging spaces in a row, that’s a major load that our low voltage lines simply can’t bear. In order to get the local distribution networks upgraded the wait times to connect these fast chargers can be as long as two years.

Not to mention that we’re supposedly aiming to make all new cars electric in a mere five years or so, while we also try to shut down our largest coal plant.

At the moment most EVs charging overnight are probably burning more fossil fuels than petrol cars do. The EV revolution in Australia (should it happen) would rampantly increase our carbon dioxide emissions. But who cares, right? It was never about CO2.

It’s not like engineers haven’t been warning us this was going to happen for ten years.

h/t Dave of Cooyal in Oz, and CO2 Lover

 

 

9.8 out of 10 based on 112 ratings

96 comments to Australia is running out of electricity to charge electric cars, and they’re only 0.9% of cars on the road

  • #

    I’m a Logistics Specialist. I’ve been banging on about this for years but no one seems to want to know. It drives me nuts when people say they can do impossible things.

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    • #
      William

      Idiots like Bowen think magic is going to happen.

      500

    • #
      John Michelmore

      Yes, there is nothing logical about this. The incompetence is breathtaking!

      440

      • #
        Ronin

        It’s government, it’s to be expected.

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        • #
          Graham Richards

          Do you think that the opposition, soon to be government are aware of the impossible, enormously expensive, idiotic targets.

          Does this opposition plan to perpetuate the ideology of the moron that identifies as an energy minister, OR, will they shelve the hoax/scam.

          Will this opposition scrap all the subsidies and the total waste of our tax $$$$ be handed to oil companies & other entities to build charging stations batteries & other useless paraphernalia.
          Does this opposition intend to continue down the fairytale path to net zero emissions & ultimately net zero economy.

          The electorate need to know. The electorate are sick & tired of the ALP BS, ideologies
          & if the opposition intend , once in power, to perpetuate the lies, obfuscation, and deceit they will certainly be looking for trouble.

          If the opposition’s intentions are to perpetuate the hoax we might as well leave the ALP in power. At least the whole thing will then come to a disastrous end a lot quicker. In other words the pain will not last longer even it is bad!

          Appeasing the Greens with Climate Change waffle will not win their vote. We urgently need direction , vision & planning not to mention aspiration!

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          • #
            Carl

            I hope they don’t try to win back the Teal seats by promising to outdo the Teals on support for renewables.

            180

          • #
            Gerry, England

            The World of the Uniparty where it doesn’t matter who you vote for you get the same thing. The UK election in July saw the lowest turnout in years as voters didn’t want Labour, nor did they want to endorse the Tories 14 years of socialism. So we have a government less than 20% of the electorate voted for and probably even less support.

            90

          • #

            A recent comment at is, perhaps, relevant [though for primarily British Panjandrums!]: –

            ““Net Zero plans are in the possession of the ignorati”

            “Isn’t the problem that those currently in office [or even in power – ‘Hello, Sue Gray’] have no science background – let alone knowledge of power engineering, materials, construction, etc.? Most of them have very fine degrees [probably 1st Class, PPE, or Fine Art, or Economic Diversity, or some such] – and consider themselves very-well educated.

            “But not practically educated.

            “The idea seems to be that The Great Ones decide -‘A cahbun-free grid by 2030’ – and then simply get ‘competent little people’ to get on and ‘do it’ – whilst carefully sealing their collective ears to any ‘nay-sayers’ [“You need a Trillion Pounds worth of batteries to have a snow-flake’s chance in hell-fire of making it work – and it won’t be on your timescale either” – that sort of remark].

            “All very sad, and I cannot see a solution until the blackouts hit.

            “That will [need to] kill people before the MSM take an interest.”

            Auto

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    • #
      Tel

      It drives me nuts when people say they can do impossible things.

      Oh sure … but what you gotta do is really, really believe and then it works!

      30

    • #
      Douglas Proctor

      I worked in the oil and gas industry for 37 years. Companies full of intelligent, knowledgeable engineers. The CEOs, Presidents, routinely made projections of success that we knew were impossible. But we couldn’t tell them …. because they didn’t want to be told! Their prestige and salaries depended on investment group and the stock market accepting their fabulous fantasies.

      I used to think they were simply liars. Then I came to believe they believed what they had to, to maintain their self image and hopes for the future. Cognitive dissonance.

      Ignorance and not understanding of what these “rulers” can explain some of this bizarre behavior. Outright grift and corruption, some more. But there’s something else: the Game and cognitive dissonance I feel is big. They CAN’T see some things because the truth would be personally devastating.

      The same goes for the media people. And the Gores, Thunbergs and Bidens. (Not the Manns: they know exactly what the truth is but they know to keep quiet.)

      40

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Good insight. The world has changed, and not for the better.

        10

      • #
        RetiredNow

        ” Then I came to believe they believed what they had to, to maintain their self-image and hopes for the future. Cognitive dissonance.”

        The same can be said about doctors and vaccines and drugs of all sorts. Their whole lives, income, social network, and family life is dependent of believing it.

        10

    • #
      Well-Informed

      Tim. The other major issue is that scams such as pumped-hydro (see Snowy 2.0, and Eungella) are said to rely entirely on getting the excess from renewables generation at times when that electricity will not be needed. This will make it cheap to do the reverse (ie uphill) pumping after the downhill flow rotates the hydro turbines.

      Ok, so there never will be any excess….and there never will be cheap uphill-pumping. The $20-30 billion already spent or committed to the pumped-hydro scams is almost certainly in govt-friendly pockets, and a % of this now in offshore accounts of the enablers behind the scams.

      You don’t own a dozen homes etc on a single parliamentary salary!

      40

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        An appropriate imagine of pockets bulging with cash.

        ” in govt-friendly pockets ”

        This suggests a new acronym ; ig-fp.

        10

  • #
    Sean

    This seems a bit odd.

    From what I understand, the fast DC chargers have batteries that store energy so it can be more rapidly discharged to a car needing power. I’ve also heard that Australia has an excess solar generation capacity where generation often exceed demand.

    It seems these two problems have the potential to solve one another with a little planning.

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    • #
      Eng_Ian

      Let’s say that they do have batteries internal and that the chargers are in use for 80% of the day. That would allow for a one hour fast charge and a few minutes for the next car to turn up.

      So when will the batteries charge and by my sums, 80% of 300kW is still a massive drain on the grid. Whatever goes into the cars HAS to go into the charger first, (plus losses).

      The only time that batteries in a charger make sense is if you can drop the duty cycle to say one car a day per charger. Who could afford to use that one unit? All costs of ownership would have to be carried by ONE car per day.

      540

    • #
      John in Oz

      Getting the power to the chargers, whether solar or other source, is a major stumbling block

      In my area it is no longer possible to install rooftop solar with feed-in as the power lines cannot handle any more input.

      The distrribution network needs major upgrades to handle fast chargers, especially if there are multiple 300kW chargers all with full capacity (rather than the available power being shared across multiple chargers)

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    • #
      another ian

      This starts with water not electricity – BUT

      I was once involved with the garden watering system of a reasonably large rebuild project.

      It was explained that the site had its own bore which pumped 3000 gallon per hour – and no bite sized chunks so they had to work out how to use it all.

      Came the day of first test and I got an urgent summons – it wasn’t working! A look at the pipe flow tables for what pipe had been installed explained why they got a dribble out the end.

      So a lot of the bore output had to be diverted to other uses to water the gardens

      The moral being that if the pipe isn’t big enough the flow won’t arrive

      And if the wire isn’t big enough neither will the electricity

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    • #
      Mike Jonas

      Here’s the solution: Don’t connect wind and solar to the grid at all, instead use wind and solar to make hydrocarbons. Then transport, store and use the hydrocarbons just like any other fossil fuel using existing infrastructure. Every problem solved except cost. No matter, at some time, as fossil fuel supply starts to decline the price will rise enough to make wind- and solar-generated hydrocarbons cost-effective. There would probably be an advantage in having a trial project set up in advance somewhere in order to learn more about it, and to have an option available if there is a future disruption to our fossil fuel supplies.

      That’s the idea behind hydrogen, but it makes a lot more sense to go straight to hydrocarbons because hydrogen has heaps of technical problems to overcome and is also lower energy density.

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    • #
      NigelW

      “It seems these two problems have the potential to solve one another with a little planning.”

      I’m not sure whether you are deliberately making the same stupid mistake politicians do (to highlight their idiocy) or if you genuinely misunderstand everything Jo has written.

      The PROBLEM is that car chargers require LARGE amounts of electricity. REALLY large.

      A 300kW charger is using the equivalent of nearly 100 homes (that useful energy term /s) worth of electricity, whilst in operation and, for safety margin reasons, needs a supply line significantly larger than 300kW.

      Stick 3 of them in the same place, and you need an electricity supply line that could power an entire suburb… or 3 cars… entirely separate to pre-existing lines, because you can’t just keep adding load to the existing lines.
      There is a significant cost to doing this, strangely enough.

      And, No, tying together the Solar from a bunch of rooftops with batteries doesn’t SOLVE the Problem, it just adds a great deal of complexity (i.e. COST)

      Which was Jo’s POINT

      50

  • #
    Neville

    So why do we want to drive unreliable toxic EVs and then try to replace our electricity needs with unreliable toxic W & S? Why do we want to destroy up to 28,000 klms of our environments and at a cost of trillions of $ and all for no change to temp, weather or climate?
    See Bloomberg’s costs for Aussie economy and even their ABC states it will cost us trillions of $ for this barking mad changeover.
    Why would we choose a charging time of 40 minutes when you can fill up an ICE car in 5 minutes?

    540

  • #
    Eng_Ian

    I have another scenario for you to consider.

    Imagine that you live on a rural property, your current electrical supply is via a single wire, earth return system capable of delivering 6kW peak. Your supply cable comes across multiple paddocks and is about 3km long, the line is deemed a private line.

    So, to go electric, you will need to now have three phase brought to your property.

    You need to pay for: –
    – Design fees.
    – A new transformer.
    – New poles.
    – New wires.
    – New switchboard.
    – New metering.
    – New connection to the charger.
    And of course the charger.

    And if you want a fast charge, then you will pay demand based fees at installation and forever via your power bill.

    Clearly living in the country is never going to be electric. What are they to do when the government makes petrol/diesel $10 per litre, (because they can)?

    590

    • #
      Earl

      And don’t think you can put the prices for your farm produce up to cover costs (and keep on living) the duopoly masters of food will not let you because they have to be seen by the government masters to be trying to keep the cost of living down.

      Besides peasants (city ones too) don’t need electricity at night they should be sleeping otherwise they might be reading stuff, texting or talking to friends and getting ideas above their station.

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    • #
      Old Goat

      Ian,
      How long do you think a battery will last in a electric tractor pulling a plough or running a harvester ? If the price of diesel rises so does food . Heavy transport also requires diesel too so the problem compounds . If we “go electric” the cities are in a world of trouble .

      250

      • #
        Eng_Ian

        If you have a 500 HP tractor, running at 50% load, (else why such a large tractor unless you needed the power). That’s 0.5 x 500 x 745 or about 186kW.

        A sensible battery is going to be in the order of 200kWHr, (about twice an electric car), any bigger and it will need it’s own trailer.

        So to answer your question, about an hour. “Mammary glands on a male bovine”.

        Clearly tractors are not going electric any time soon.

        My earlier message was about the electric car demands. Farm equipment would be several steps too far for the grid, even for a small farm.

        180

    • #

      At this rate with all other “Guv’ment Polly Sillies”, inflation (the Corrupted Price Index – CPI) will never get down to an RBA target range of 2 to 3% pa.

      Vale Australia until Reality takes charge (no Pun intended – lol).

      110

      • #
        Eng_Ian

        Maybe chinese vegetables, with all the added probiotics could be the solution.

        Parliament house shall be the first consumer. Especially of the raw salads.

        80

  • #
    Neville

    Why do we listen to Labor, the Greens and Teals when we know that deaths from extreme weather events have dropped by 98% in the last 100 years.
    Of course the lefty extremists also don’t understand that our population has increased from under 2 billion in 1920 and over 8.1 billion today.
    Why don’t these liars and con merchants understand our human flourishing and safety today compared to the dangerous world we left a century ago?

    340

  • #
    Dallas

    Sooooo… have I got this right(?) $100 Million divided by 200 chargers is $500,000each

    290

    • #
      David Maddison

      Special price for the subsidy harvesters.

      The Government can just tax us more directly or just print more money and tax us indirectly.

      I saw this sort of thing a lot working on defence contracts. The people in the Government simply had no clue how much any thing of any kind cost and would agree to any price proposal, no matter how ridiculous and unrealistic it was and even when I warned them that the price was way too high and they should not agree to it.

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      • #
        Old Goat

        David,
        Most likely they need a large battery to enable fast charging . Be hilarious if the Ampol station blacked out when someone plugged in . Sorry mate the pumps aren’t working….

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    • #
      Yarpos

      When you do basic maths reality checks on many of these proosals they make no sense in any sane universe. Albos housing thought bubble is another example.

      80

  • #
    Ted1.

    The Physics is simple. The Maths are simple. And it has been highlighted often enough on thid blog.

    For this “transition”, the energy that used to be delivered from coal, oil and gas must now come down the wires from windmills and “solar farms”.

    I won’t say it can’t be done. But we can’t afford it.

    And it’s madness anyway!

    300

  • #
    David Maddison

    Cloud and AI data centres will use even more electrical power than EVs.

    As I said yesterday, in proper countries, data centres are moving to real sources of power like coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (not SH2).

    When they use coal and gas, they buy fake “greenhouse gas credits” to appease the wokesters.

    Nuclear powered data centres is the way to go. E.g. Amazon just purchased a nuclear powered data centre that consumes a staggering 960MW of power.

    https://electrek.co/2024/03/05/amazon-just-bought-a-100-nuclear-powered-data-center/

    And even in Europe, they are running out of power for data centres and are talking about nuclear power.

    https://funds-europe.com/nuclear-smr-powered-data-centres-and-europes-grid-crisis/

    And the Government loves and needs cloud and AI data centres to monitor and control the population and distribute propaganda.

    You can’t run a modern civilisation on weather-dependent electricity.

    Australia is so far behind, it’s unbelievable.

    And Australia will lose out in the data centre market without cheap reliable power. You simply can’t run them on solar and wind plantations and Big Batteries.

    We will need to run EVs either on coal/gas as now or nuclear power. And nuclear is just not going to happen anytime soon in the Stupid Country.

    Incidentally, I just wrote an article on data centres which will appear in Jan 2025.

    370

  • #
    ivan

    I am reminded of the cartoon of an Electric car towing a trailer with a large diesel generator spewing a large cloud of fumes connected to the EV by a cable to charging port. I think that would be necessary in Australia because of the distances to get anywhere (try driving an EV from Sydney to Perth in a reasonable time.)

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  • #
    Earl

    Perhaps at the next dinner that Albanese attends one of the speakers should point out they got driven to the event in a private car, a live ICE one not a dead EV one.

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Meh, it’s just a minor setback – a little speed bump if you will – on the Highway To Hell (spelt Heaven by its PR dept). If only your PM Elblowhard had listened to our ex-PM, Comrade Cinders, you too could be living in Nirvana Zero (NZ) where, due to ‘increasingly unpredictable weather’, we are now relying on weather-dependent electrishitty generation to, um, make the weather less unpredictable, or sumpfink™️.

    Is it true Comrade Cinders graced the front page of a certain Sydney newspaper yesterday? You poor wee possums! As she now lives in Boston, MA (thanks to her honorary degree) am wondering how she travelled to USA’s murder capital, Chicago: public transport? e-bike? horse-and-cart? riverboat? roller-skates? or did her fellow WEFer, Justine Trud’oh, loan her his [gas-guzzling fossil-fuel planet-destroying] private jet?

    * White Island had another eruption this morning, the onshore breeze dropping a dusting of black ash along the beaches of Tauranga, temporarily closing a number of provincial airports. Surely windmills & solar panels will stop this malarkey by Next Tuesday?

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      * Dismal miss-information c/- RadioNZ above: the ‘black ash’ on beaches is akshully natural sand layers exposed by the tide: however, planes are still on hold due to the ash cloud in the area. Release the CO2 hounds!

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      • #
        Earl

        Celebrate White Island eruptions. Given the other uptick in regularly reported earthquakes round the rim of fire the regions pressure valve has kept them lower than they might have been. As I’ve mentioned before White Island stops smokin you start runnin. Cheers.

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        • #
          Leo G

          … before White Island stops smokin you start runnin

          You may need to run some distance, though. The Taupo volcanic zone stretches from White Island to Mount Ruapehu.

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  • #
    Neville

    So will EVs increase or decrease co2 emissions? Again are toxic EVs just another giant con trick? Here’s a quote from Mark Mills and the link.

    https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/22/the-tough-calculus-of-emissions-and-the-future-of-evs/

    “A growing body of research points to the likelihood that widespread replacement of conventional cars with EVs would likely have a relatively small impact on global emissions. And it’s even possible that the outcome would increase emissions”.

    “The issue is not primarily about the emissions resulting from producing electricity. Instead, it’s what we know and don’t know about what happens before an EV is delivered to a customer, namely, the “embodied” emissions arising from the labyrinthine supply chains to obtain and process all the materials needed to fabricate batteries”.

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    • #
      Graeme4

      Bjorn Lomborg calculated that if all vehicles were EVs, the change in the earth’s temperature would be 0.00001 degree C by 2100.

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      • #
        Neville

        Thanks Graeme4 I’d forgotten Lomborg’s quote and I’ll try and find it again.
        He has 24 top scientists and economists to support his research and I always trust his data compared to loonies like Mann, Holdren, or Hansen etc.

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        • #
          Graeme4

          I have the statement as being made by Lomborg in October 2022. However, a similar statement appears in an article by Bjorn Lomborg in The Australian 28 December 2019. One paragraph stated: As IEA executive director Fatih Birol has said: “If you think you can save the climate with electric cars, you’re completely wrong.” Last year, electric cars saved 40 million tonnes of CO2 worldwide, equivalent to reducing global temperatures by only 0.000018C — or a little more than a hundred-thousandth of a degree — by the end of the century.

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          • #
            Leo G

            Last year, electric cars saved 40 million tonnes of CO2 worldwide, equivalent to reducing global temperatures by only 0.000018C — or a little more than a hundred-thousandth of a degree — by the end of the century.

            Accounting for a half-life of anthropogenic CO2 through natural sequestration, the 40 million tonnes saved last year should discount to less than 10 million tonnes by the end of the century, and accordingly might reduce global temperatures by less than 0.000005 degree Celsius.

            60

    • #
      another ian

      FWIW

      “EV vs INTERNAL COMBUSTION – 10yr CO2 shootout! I ran the numbers… | AutoExpert John Cadogan”

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

      Salty as usual

      30

  • #
    Robert Swan

    This was worded gently:

    the last mile distribution grid is not really built for large-scale electrification

    It’s like saying we’re only missing the bottom part of the pyramid. The “last mile” is well over half the grid. If they wanted to be less deceptive they might have said that most of the grid is not built for large-scale electrification.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    It’s simply incomprehensible that our politicians and their highly overpaid “expert” advisors including senior public serpents (Senior Executives in the public “service” get a salary of $1,695,138 per year), the $916.5 million per year CSIRO, plus “professional” “science” and “engineering” associations are unable or unwilling to do very simple calculations I would expect a smart ten year old to be able to do.

    Reference for top Aust. Gov. salary: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Salary/Australian-Government-Salaries-E336209.htm

    131

  • #
    Ardy

    $100 million to build 200 chargers? What?? How can one charger cost $500,000?
    Oh that’s right, my bad.
    It’s $10,000 per charger and $490,000 per charger for the climate cult bureaucracy parasites and state and local councils on the take.

    270

  • #
    Steve of Cornubia

    Many moons ago, early in my management career, I was taught:

    “Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”

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    • #
      Earl

      Like the title that book was too long a read. The more popular shorter follow-up “Cover Your RRRs” was the best seller.

      30

      • #
        another ian

        Not to omit that model for many “how to do it” books –

        “How to do it and not get it” authored by “One who did it, got it and can’t get rid of it”

        30

    • #

      I have always remembered it as the “7 P Factor” –

      Proper Prior Planning Prevents P*ss Popr Performance.

      Such a Great Statement when referring to “Pollies” and their “Polisillies”

      60

  • #
    John Hultquist

    These people are not good with numbers.”
    😆

    140

  • #
    Neville

    Here’s two short very interesting interviews from Mark Mills and all about the magical thinking of their toxic EVs.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2HneqfZGsM&t=50s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptI6BRVC1Kw&t=27s

    80

  • #
    TdeF

    It’s easy to solve. Big Petrol/diesel based generators at all petrol stations including the 1900 run by AMPOL! Far cheaper than even a single fast recharging point. Maybe even lots of household style car charging points for the community. Not super fast, but who cares?

    Of course the pushers of Green electrons might choke on their lattes.

    It will end up the only way. And it’s very affordable and fast.

    And importantly the same generators can be used to supply electricity to the station/pumps/registers when there is a blackout which otherwise also shuts down the petrol pumps.
    That way people can keep travelling. Despite the utter stupidity of blowing up working power stations.

    Most electric vehicles are second cars anyway, so speed of charging is not a problem.

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    • #
      TdeF

      In fact it raises this big problem of an electricity stoppage putting all cars off the road as electrically and computer operated bowsers do not work. And those with home generators cannot get fuel.
      It is difficult to get generator fuel out of modern cars as there are siphon blocks in place to stop petrol theft.

      So no one is think though the implications of making Australia so vulnerable to electricity stoppages. Electric cars being in difficulty is only the start of the problems for everyone.

      120

      • #

        “think though the implications …”

        That’s for the little people to do.
        And We won’t actually listen to anything they say.
        We have set the policy [after much thought, and listening to Greta] – all they have to do is fix or line-up or whatever they need to do to the widgets. A two-minute job, surely.

        Auto – depressed.

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  • #

    There’s an interesting (sort of a sarcastic word here) happening with actual power consumption here. (well, across the AEMO anyway, so sorry WA)

    The last two years, total power consumption has been rising, and here, not just smallish, but larger than the usual rise.

    An extra 6GWH a year, and using percentage that ‘seems’ smaller, at just under three percent.

    The last year (whole of year 2023) it totalled out at 206TWH for the year.

    The most recent ‘running’ 12 Months (August to August) it’s totalled 212TWH.

    Now, again, that may not seem much of an increase, although a lot bigger than normal over recent years, but put that into the perspective of the terminology always use these days, that’s the addition of an extra ….. 1.1 Million homes, or similar to the addition of a fairly large city.

    Umm, two years, the rise in Electric vehicles, AI, Bitcoin. (blockchain)

    And no (cough) construction of ‘Real’ power plants.

    That rise is the same as the total generation for half of last year’s total generation from the Bayswater coal fired plant.

    Tony.

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  • #
    Tony Tea

    All anyone has to do is calculate the maximum demand for a petrol station with fast chargers. A half capable sparky could do it. Then work out the MD for the street, the block the suburb, etc. It’s almost as if the RE shills, Bowen and his flunkies don’t want to know how big the numbers could be. I mean, over the last 20-odd years there have been repeated concerns about the strain air-con has put on the network, but the same people don’t seem to care that there is a similar issue with EV charging.

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      As I keep saying, the stupendous fortunes to be made from Green Dream aren’t reliant on success; they are made on the road to failure. This is why, as the EV and renewables scam loses steam, some other pipe dream such as hydrogen power will replace it.

      It’s like the switcheroo the democrats just performed when the ‘Best Candidate Ever’ (Biden) was swapped for the ‘Best Candidate Ever’ (Harris) and nobody is supposed to notice.

      80

    • #

      Just rough numbers…
      – ICE = 5 mins for fill up to go 600 km.
      – EV = 30 mins for fill up to go 200 km.
      Therefore 18 times more time spent at servo for EV.
      What is the productivity cost to society of spending 90 mins at the bowser for 600 km of capacity PER VEHICLE?
      Therefore Servo needs 18 times more car spaces and 18 times more chargers.
      Therefore Servo needs roads dug up for miles to put in the thigh thickness cables to supply.
      Therefore very few servos and none privately operated (too much capital cost).
      Therefore price to fill up increases due to decreased competition (wait – do we have any of that NOW???)

      Need I go on?

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      ozfred

      The (hourly?) throughput of substation transformers should be publicly available information before the installation of community batteries or subsidized EV charging points.
      Without that data the consumers who are paying the bills may be sold something they neither need nor want.

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      David of Cooyal in Oz

      Do you think our pollies have discovered that ancient mathematics practiced here in Oz for thousands of years of unrecorded advancement: one, two, three, lots?
      And the updated version: one , two, three, four, five, big fella lots.
      Called “science” in some societies.

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    Given the repeated fails of Minister For Climate Change And Energy, Chris Bowen to make Australia a renewable energy superpower I’m speculating on how Sir Ian Flemming would have applied his famous but realistic observation:

    Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

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    John Connor II

    How often must it be said?
    Let them have their dreamworld.
    Let them experience firsthand how it doesn’t work, and never could.
    Let them remove their blinkers and see the realities behind their delusions.
    The ONLY way they’ll wake up is the hard way, as is human nature, so just get it over and done with asap, as I grow weary of it all.

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    Neville

    Again Mark Mills uses IEA data to reveal the real BS and lies behind their so called clean EVs.

    IOW the IEA tells us the change to EVs + batteries + toxic wind and solar etc will require 300% to 4,000% increase in mining.
    So soon to have 3 times to 13 times more mining is a hell of a range and yet these liars and con merchants also call this lunacy clean energy?
    https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/22/the-tough-calculus-of-emissions-and-the-future-of-evs/

    “Turning up the volume”

    “Perhaps the most important wildcard is the expected rise in energy costs associated with obtaining the necessary quantities of “energy transition minerals” (ETMs as the International Energy Agency (IEA) terms them)”.

    “Earlier this year, the agency issued a major report on the challenges of supplying ETMs to build batteries as well as solar and wind machines. The report reinforces what others have earlier pointed out. Compared to conventional cars, EVs require using, overall, about 500% more critical minerals per vehicle. Thus, the IEA concludes that current plans for EVs, along with plans for wind and solar, will require a 300% to 4,000% increase in global mine output for the necessary suite of key minerals”.

    “The fact that an EV uses, for example, about 300% to 400% more copper than a conventional car has yet to impact global supply chains because EVs still account for less than 1% of the total global auto fleet. Producing EVs at scale, along with plans for grid batteries as well as for wind and solar machines, will push the “clean energy” sector up to consuming over half of all global copper (from today’s 20% level). For nickel and cobalt, to note two other relevant minerals, “transition” aspirations will push clean energy use of those two metals to 60% and 70%, respectively of global demand”.

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      Neville

      Don’t forget that Mark Mills is really saying that the cost of mining will soon increase from 3 times to 13 times the cost we pay today. And this is IEA data.
      Can anyone really be stupid enough to call this Green + Clean energy?

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    Yarpos

    Dear Mr Bowen

    That rapidly expanding thing in your field of view is the wall of reality.

    Best you do something, because it is not moving.

    Your Pal, Y

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    Neville

    Peta Credlin has a look at the latest polling and her Hubby may be appointed by Dutton to try and fix the clueless NSW branch of the Liberal party.
    Great to see the Coalition now leading Labor on all the important issues and particularly National security and Immigration.
    BTW if we had first past the post voting like the UK and the USA etc the Coalition would win in a landslide.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaaMsooa-rE

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    • #

      Neville,
      ” … if we had first past the post voting like the UK and the USA etc the Coalition would win in a landslide.”
      I’m sure you’re right.
      But here, in the UK, we have Sir Starmer, the Beige Knight [his Dad was a Tool-maker – did you know?], with a 150+ majority in the House of Commons.
      On about 20.5% of all those eligible to vote.
      So 7 in 9 voters certainly didn’t bother to vote for him and his herd of woke-ites.
      Indeed, about 40% didn’t vote at all – “NONE OF THE ABOVE”, in spades.
      And Sir Starmer is ‘looking at’ ‘overhauling’ [pronounced ‘gerrymandering’?] membership of the House of Lords [Upper House].

      The voters are always right – except when they aren’t!

      Auto

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    Neville

    BTW here Lomborg uses the EIA to show that EVs would only reduce the world’s temperature by 0.0001 C by the end of the century.
    That is an unmeasurable 10 thousandths of a degree C in 76 years.
    And that’s using the IPCCs standard model and that dangerous fantasy would cost us trillions of $ for SFA change by 2100.
    Again when will we wake up?

    “The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if every nation achieves its ambitious targets on increasing electric car ownership, it will reduce CO2 emissions in this decade by 235 million tons”.

    “That, according to the UN Climate Panel’s standard model, will reduce global temperatures by about one ten-thousandth of a degree Celsius (0.0001c) by the end of the century”.

    “Such modest climate benefits don’t make up for the additional downsides of electric vehicles, which include the harsh environmental and social costs that come with mining rare metals needed for batteries”.

    “So what should politicians be doing? For a start, they could stop showering subsidies on electric cars and focus on smarter solutions”.

    “The IEA found that hybrid cars save about the same amount of CO2 as electric cars over their lifetime”.

    “Moreover, they are already competitive with petrol cars price-wise — even without subsidies — and, crucially, they don’t have most of the electric car downsides outlined above”.

    https://climatechangedispatch.com/lomborg-are-electric-cars-the-new-diesel-scandal-waiting-to-happen/

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    Penguinite

    https://principia-scientific.com/south-korea-looking-to-ban-evs-in-parking-garages-after-explosion/

    PS My debate with Burnie City Council over the installation of EV charging points in a conspicuously dangerous position in their multi-story car park has, not surprisingly, hit a “Prick” wall. To make matters worse BCC do not accept ANY liability for damage to vehicles caused by fire. They do they have a policy to segregate EVs from ICE vehicles. Neither the Tasmanian State Government or TFS responded to questions concerning EV fires in public spaces.

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    Ross

    The government incentives to bribe the public into taking up these non performing technologies is just insane. Look at this – $100m which could have been better spent on so many other things. There’s also this false accelerated Net Zero timetable to the adoption of Battery Powered Vehicles, intermittent energy production, CCS etc. The US is doing the same with their badly named Inflation Reduction Act. Basically throwing money at every crazy “climate” project they can muster. Even US farmers, highly cynical of AGW, are now being bribed to take up soil carbon trading, solar panels and more wind turbines. There’s so much money involved, you would be a fool not to investigate the likely tax offsets etc. Deficit- what deficit? Australia is no different. Then you think- who’s benefitting by all these Net Zero targets? Certainly not the environment. Definitely not the taxpayer, you and I are getting screwed, which also includes those getting incentives to adopt these policies. Must be the big end of town. The financiers, green energy investors and rent seekers, that’s who’s making the money. As George Carlin said,” … there’s a big club out there, and we’re not in it”.

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    Philip

    I’m an idiot, and I saw that one coming.

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    Philip

    I would think the only way of producing enough CO2 free power for EVs would be via many nuclear plants.

    30

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    Gerry, England

    The closer you get to the point of delivery the more reality bites you in the arse. Although the saying goes – Fail to plan, Plan to fail – it does help if your plan was actually rooted in reality and not bullshit. In the UK we have a complete nutter in Miliband in charge of energy and has planned for the UK generation to be Net Zero by 2030, which the alert amongst you will note in construction terms is Very Soon. His plan depends on technology that is untried, horrendously expensive, or indeed both. But before you even get to the unicorn fart solutions, just building more windmills at sea of the current designs in undeliverable as the manufacturing resources are not there, the construction resources are not there and crucially there is no resource available for laying subsea cables until after 2030. This is kind of good news for the taxpayers but there will still be £millions wasted on doomed ideas such as CCS etc.

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    Zigmaster

    I’d like to remind Jo of the VW golf deisel and VW golf electric comparison that showed that the excess emissions created in the production stage of the car took 125000 km to get to be repaid in the most favourable EU grid ,whilst in Germany and USA , probably more similar to Australia it took over 200000 km . And if you ran your EV in China with its energy mix you never catch up with the gap just getting better. Most EV owners would sell before the extra emissions had been paid back. The reality is forgetting about the cost and inconvenience ,in relation to emissions you would be better off having bought a petrol car. When one assesses these whole of life emissions EVs are not as green as their petrol equivalents.
    This scam is almost as outrageous as the original climate scam.

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    Ford faces £1.5bn hit as it cancels electric SUV project

    Ford has unveiled a £1.5bn hit from its decision to cancel a new electric SUV as it says motorists are unwilling to pay higher prices to switch away from petrol and diesel.

    The Detroit powerhouse said on Wednesday it was watering down its electric car plans by focusing increasingly on its hybrid range as it seeks to appeal to cost-conscious buyers.

    The news comes as a major blow to the Biden administration, which has announced billions in subsidies for American carmakers to invest in electrification.

    As part of the shift in strategy, Ford said it will scrap plans for an all-electric three-row SUV and replace it with a new hybrid model.

    This is expected to cost the company up to $1.9bn (£1.5bn) in writedowns and additional expenses.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ford-faces-1-5bn-hit-as-it-cancels-electric-suv-project/ar-AA1pc372

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    ‘Charger Hogs’ Are Ruining the EV Experience in the United States

    Electric vehicle owners in the United States are getting fed up with “charger hogs” and have been left with a sour taste in their mouths so far as their overall EV experience is concerned.

    Long queues at battery charging stations coupled together with bad etiquette from fellow Americans have forced several EV companies to release statements revealing they aim to solve these problems in the future by simply cutting people off.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charger-hogs-ruining-electric-vehicle-180002845.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

    40

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    Pete of Charnlop

    Way back in 2012, Giles Parkinson was very worried about the peak loads imposed by naughty air conditioners.

    https://reneweconomy.com.au/why-you-are-paying-10hr-to-run-your-neighbours-air-con-21376/

    If my aircon unit plunking along at 600 Watts is bad, where does a 300kW fast charge fit on his scale of Armageddon?

    30