Categories: Modern / Current Culture

Post #44 Electrical Grid; Needs to Double / Triple?

Global Energy Grid; needs to double within ~10 years? In the midst of another heat wave over the past week. l clearly see the need for more air conditioning/cooling going forward. Until we adapt to other ways to cool our homes. & We already see gov’t. plans to ban gas vehicles & switch most of us over to EVs within a decade or two…

As many have already noted, the energy (electric) grid likely has to be greatly expanded soon, to meet these needs & more.

Some other signs of growing energy grids needs:

In my location we are told it is mandatory to complete an electrical planning report for our condo building. Likely partly because: going forward our gov’t. needs an idea how much the energy grid needs to be expanded. Also, our bldg. was prompted recently to review the installation of EV chargers.
Only recently, we increasingly feel a need for air conditioning in my area. Yet over the past few decades, hundreds (thousands?) of condo bldgs. were built here without any central air conditioning.
Recent storms in the news have caused major power outages, creating big problems & consequences for citizens.
AI; bitcoin; huge data centres: have all been gobbling up very large amounts of electricity.

All pointing towards spending large amounts of our taxpayer money growing the power grids. How expensive will that be? One answer I think I can promise: Not Super Cheap. We will all be paying, somehow. I have seen some estimated $$ cost numbers with lots of “balloons” (zeroes) in them.

Increase the grids how much? I believe that we don’t really know yet. Though a preliminary internet search easily found me recent articles confirming that a doubling or even tripling in capacity may be reasonable predictions.

After glancing at some news article headlines of the past 4 or 5 years, one might surmise (I do) a worldwide race, especially in developed countries, to increase their grids rapidly. Both to remain competitive, & to maintain standards of living.

It’s a formidable sounding task. I am a firm believer in human creativity, so I am confident it will be accomplished. & That some areas of the World will prove to be more creative & potentially much more successful at this task.

Personally, I am currently adjusting to the idea of how much our taxes & electrical bills may have to increase to pay for it.

Kellie

Kellie tries to improve quality of life, while lowering cost & simplifying ['mostly: let's Not do expensive rocket science every day']. So: high quality @ lower cost & simplified when possible. Some experiments work better than others; I plan to share how the experiments go in my blog(s).