Lower "forever" oil prices?

[rdefayette]

All this talk of electric cars/vehicles begs the question of what just happened with Hurricane Irma in Florida. What will happen with all of these glorified "paperweights" if the power grid is not restored in some areas of the state for 2-3 weeks? "I'm sorry but I can't charge my car" is not a very good reason for not getting to work, (insert wherever you need to go here), etc. Unless your home has a generator (guess what they use to operate) a battery (all electric) vehicle in situations like this are useless. JMO

[stefanv]

Gas stations are useless too, since their fuel will all be contaminated with water.

[Daox]

You also kind of need electricity to run the pumps at the gas station.

[rdefayette]

Originally Posted by stefanv

Gas stations are useless too, since their fuel will all be contaminated with water.

Not necessarily. Most modern fuel storage tanks are completely sealed. (Vapor recovery, fuel goes in the ground, vapors are recovered by the truck) Not like the old days where vapor was vented to the atmosphere. But I can find a gas station somewhere and carry gas home. You can't do that with electricity. I can also drive somewhere, fill up and be on my way. If you have an electric vehicle you get to drive wherever there happens to be power and camp out for 6-12 + hours while it charges, I hope where they have power isn't so far "down range" that most of what power the batteries store isn't used up getting to and from the most convenient plug.

[rdefayette]

Originally Posted by Daox

You also kind of need electricity to run the pumps at the gas station.

Generator fixes that. and the gas station isn't going to let you plug into it.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Daox

You also kind of need electricity to run the pumps at the gas station.

Time to "bring back" the original hand-operated gasoline pumps from history? At least as 'emergengy / backup'?

[Frank]

Nobody has mentioned that the best way to implement a carbon tax is to take the revenue, divide by all legal residents in the US and return the money to them on a monthly or quarterly basis i.e. revenue-neutral. This then becomes an incentive to pursue lower carbon energy alternatives.

[RedDevil]

The grid breaks down because it can break down. There has only been invested so much in it. Once it becomes the only system of redistributing energy, time and money must be spent to make it disaster proof.

In Holland the low voltage grid is >99,9% underground and even the high voltage lines are slowly but steadily moving out of sight.
As a result grid failures are quite infrequent over here; one of the last big ones was caused by an Apache helicopter...

Would it be a stupid idea to put all the main electric lines in the southern coastal area and tornado alley underground?

[redpoint5]

There is a valid point that the electric grid is more susceptible to outages and stranding EVs than the petrol "grid".

However, it's a minor point because there are plenty of alternatives to driving an EV to work. Bus, walk, bike, carpool, take your ICE vehicle, use a generator, Uber...

There are very few reasons that would prevent a person from physically getting to work with minimal prior planning.

[JockoT]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

In Holland the low voltage grid is >99,9% underground and even the high voltage lines are slowly but steadily moving out of sight.

The UK is the same. Power outages due to lines down is very rare in areas other than extremely rural. Scottish highlands and islands where overground high voltage lines are the norm are at risk.