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Power United States

Elon Musk Predicts Electricity Shortage in Two Years (msn.com) 463

"The man behind the race to replace gasoline-fueled cars with electric ones is worried about having enough juice," writes the Wall Street Journal: In recent days he has reiterated those concerns, predicting U.S. consumption of electricity, driven in part by battery-powered vehicles, will triple by around 2045. That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence. "You really need to bring the time scale of projects in sooner and have a high sense of urgency," Musk told energy executives Tuesday at a conference held by PG&E, one of the nation's largest utilities. "My biggest concern is that there's insufficient urgency."

Musk's participation with PG&E Chief Executive Patti Poppe at the power company's conference marked the third major energy event the billionaire has appeared at in the past 12 months. He has played the part of Cassandra, trying to spark more industry attention on the infrastructure required for his EV and AI futures as he advocates for a fully electric economy. "I can't emphasize enough: we need more electricity," Musk said last month at an energy conference in Austin. "However much electricity you think you need, more than that is needed." The U.S. energy industry in recent years already has struggled at times to keep up with demand, resorting to threats of rolling blackouts amid heat waves and other demand spikes. Those stresses have rattled an industry undergoing an upheaval as old, polluting plants are being replaced by renewable energy. Utilities are spending big to retool their systems to be greener and make them more resilient. Deloitte estimates the largest U.S. electric companies together will spend as much as $1.8 trillion by 2030 on those efforts. Adding to the challenge is an industry historically accustomed to moving slowly, partly because of regulators aiming to protect consumers from price increases.

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Elon Musk Predicts Electricity Shortage in Two Years

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  • Elon Musk? (Score:2, Insightful)

    Isn't he the guy who bought Twitter - mostly with other people's money - and then kept sabotaging it until the value fell by 75%? Why should we listen to him? He's just trying to sell a bunch of his batteries.

    • by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:39PM (#63726670)

      Elon Musk on Everything: My solution to any problem is for you to buy things from my companies.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @04:04AM (#63727278) Homepage Journal

      This is good news. Musk predictions never come true. He said Tesla cars would be fully self driving by 2017, and he would have people on Mars by 2021.

      These electricity shortages must be at least a decade away, if Musk thinks they are imminent.

  • by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter&tedata,net,eg> on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:33PM (#63726656) Journal

    That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence.

    Will AI improve the welfare of our planet and its inhabitants? No. Will electric vehicles? Maybe. But given the stakes, a maybe is worth pursuing.

    Frankly, I haven't seen anything yet that AI has done that has truly been a benefit for human kind. I only see vain capitalistic pursuits.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

      AI already improves my life as a developer every day. When I'm looking for a code sample for something obscure that I'm trying to do, ChatGPT kindly searches Stack Overflow for me, digests it, and presents me with code that is tailored to my specific needs.

      It also saved me a ton of time figuring out how to get some large mirrors off a wall.

      Sure, I could have found these things myself before AI, but AI makes it easier, and does it with more speed and precision. It's just a matter of time before people everyw

      • Yes. Furthermore, if its capabilities expand into proving and engineering, it can massively improve the world through automation and robotics and low energy hyper efficient everything.

    • Will AI improve the welfare of our planet and its inhabitants? No. [...]

      Frankly, I haven't seen anything yet that AI has done that has truly been a benefit for human kind. I only see vain capitalistic pursuits.

      AI can probably run self-driving vehicles in various conditions. Not on congested streets, but on highways with electric semis, and with drones delivering mail and small packages. Probably a lot of other applications as well, and there are a ton of follow-on jobs that AI long-haul driving will eliminate, such as the diners and gas stations all across the highways in the US.

      That will reduce the workforce needed for transportation by several percent, perhaps 5 million out of a 60 million workforce, which will

    • That's because you have a bias, filtering out all the examples that you don't want to see.

      AI is in use helping to diagnose patients [pbs.org], and cure [forbes.com] diseases [theguardian.com]. Also, we are using it to keep water clean [fsu.edu].

      That was just using a cursory search. If you are actually motivated to find more examples, you can do your own searching. Probably with the help of a search engine (just to make the irony clear: search engines all use rudimentary AI algorithms to do their work (please, no semantic hair-splitting, in the Computer S

      • It is certainly a lot better at human doctors at examining imaging scans and finding cancers and other conditions. At the very least, it takes that load off of doctors. And that gap is getting wider and wider.

  • Store lots of it underground in times of surplus renewable generation. Takes 1/1000 the volume of compressed air, when you want to use it its basically like steam power but without requiring the heat source (ambient heat will suffice)
  • ÃoeIÃ(TM)m

    WTF is that?

    • by dohzer ( 867770 )

      Hold on, I've got you. "ÃoeIÃ(TM)m" is a term mea//(a) "öz#~ed/#(TM)" and is ofte(TM)#%[R] used in situations where &(TM); are involved.

    • ÃoeIÃ(TM)m

      WTF is that?

      I think that's Elon's kid's name.

  • Good news (Score:2, Funny)

    by Sitnalta ( 1051230 )

    Elon Musk's tiny dick energy will more than cover US national demand.

  • There is nothing like an scheduled energy crisis that makes me feeling paying more for day to day living isnt in some way justified.
  • They denied climate change was a problem and now it is their problem.

    Cooling commercial buildings is six times more energy-intensive in hot climates than cold [eia.gov]

    Time to start moving to more temperate climates.

    • From the link;

      The energy intensity for cooling commercial buildings in the United States depends on the climate the building is located in.

      So there you have it. Whoever would have thought? That is fucking groundbreaking research right there LOL.

  • https://www.decra.com/blog/how... [decra.com] But, it doesn't go far enough. We must require that every new construction pay for the capital investment of solar (based on square footage) even if the construction is too small or doesn't have adequate sunlight footprint. If the solar is not installed on-premise locally, then it must be offsite. Of course you will be entitled to any electricity generated from that for free (and get profit if you under-utilize it such that it can be sold to others.)

    • Well, in order for this to work we have to arrange to charge the cars when the sun is shining and not charge them when the sun is not shining. OR we can add storage to the grid. But we cannot add millions of cars, shut down fuel burning generation that runs at night, and charge cars at home overnight. In order for solar to solve the problem, most people are going to have to recharge during the day at work.
  • Elon is working for the good of everybody in more ways than one here.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      He will probably be required to turn off the new X logo. Neighbours are complaining about the light pollution, and it is extremely bright.

  • Odd that the California PUC sabotaged net metering at the bequest of the utilities to destroy the economics of rooftop solar just this year if there is going to be an energy shortage in the near future.

    Don't live in California anymore, but my approach is to have 150% of my annual consumption in rooftop PV production, along with enough battery storage to tide me over for 1.5 days of zero PV. I'm not especially sensitive to the economics of this approach, but for broader adoption this should essentially zero

    • Don't live in California anymore

      It sounds like a lot of people don't live in California any more. It appears that the people in California like voting for politicians that will drive people out of the state. More state for them that way, I guess.

      I expect the popularity of net metering to fade. Under net metering as residential PV use grows this is adding more power to the grid that the utilities cannot control. Too much of this and the utilities have to take on the costs of shedding supply elsewhere, and while still paying a premium p

  • Y'all need to panic, and then buy my battery systems.

    Or, get more solar on residential homes for distributed generation and better resilience. Oh wait, there isn't an ongoing profit motive in that one. Scratch that idea. Or at least put it far down the list, so we don't get accused of trying to kill it off in favor of the Utility owned solar farm.

  • by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:41PM (#63726776)

    That's why I bought a gas generator to charge my electric vehicle

    • That's why I bought a gas generator to charge my electric vehicle

      That's no doubt meant to be funny but that does appear where things are headed.

      I watched an interview lately on YouTube with some energy expert. He mentioned that Generac is making good money lately. Generac is a company that produces generators for homes and businesses. Government policies that are driving adoption of wind and solar power is also driving a trend for power outages. People with the money to afford a backup generator are buying them. Those that don't have the money will just have to live

  • go figure (Score:5, Funny)

    by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @11:02PM (#63726814)

    The guy who owns the battery company thinks everyone should buy more batteries.

  • Develop chips that don't use so much energy, there is no reason to waste energy
    • you could use the chips less often. then you don't need to build anything new or replace anything. imagine how much electricity would be saved if every slashdotter agreed to dip into their porn stash one fewer day per week.

  • by hamburger lady ( 218108 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @12:26AM (#63726950)

    given musk's long history of coughing up overly-optimistic timelines for various tesla models, i'd say we're probably good for at least 15 years then

  • That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence.

    Yeah, that all sounds well and good, but I bet there's some hidden downsides as well.

  • by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:22AM (#63727038)

    Elon Musk has to know that his dream of people living on Mars will not happen without nuclear power. NASA is working on nuclear powered rockets for interplanetary travel. NASA is also working on small nuclear reactors for supplying heat and electricity for people at their destination planet. Yet Elon Musk never mentions nuclear power for use on Earth? Seems a bit odd to me.

    Any successful colonization of Mars will require nuclear power. Elon Musk must know this. Yet it seems he can't mention this, likely because he knows that would be bad for business. Battery electric vehicles will not be successful without nuclear power, because the inherent intermittent nature of wind and solar power will create huge issues in charging up BEVs. Imagine the load on the grid if the US Postal Service completes their plan to have all delivery vehicles run on batteries. That means at the end of the day all these BEVs will be parked, charging up through the night, when then sun isn't shining.

    What is the solution on this? Charge up the batteries in vehicles from batteries that were charged up during the day? Have postal workers make their deliveries during the night? I'm sure someone will suggest solar panels on the vehicles, do the math on that once and tell me how that works out. Perhaps the batteries in the vehicles can be swapped out, and that won't create any logistical problems?

    We will need nuclear power for our electricity. Further we need to work out synthesized fuels for our vehicles, because batteries won't be enough. Rockets to Mars certainly won't run on batteries. Battery powered airplanes aren't going to fly very far, if at all. Sure, we have a few examples of experimental aircraft that are battery powered. But then I guess if people are drinking enough kool-aid to think we can charge up fleets of trucks at night then charging up battery powered airplanes is nothing. Do the math on that and let me know how this works.

    Oddly enough I saw an interview with Elon Musk were he runs through some of the math on getting a battery powered airplane to fly. He convinced himself it would work, and I agree. What he glosses over is that it would take an airplane the size of a Boeing 747 to move maybe a dozen passengers.

    • If the US has a say 100 TWh hydrogen or synthetic fuel reserve, the intermittency of renewable sources becomes a cost issue (maybe a doubling, but same order of magnitude) rather than a fundamental problem.

      • Solar power in every form already costs more than nuclear power. Offshore wind costs more than nuclear power. Onshore wind is lower cost than nuclear power but with intermittency being an issue there's only so much wind that can be on the grid before storage as a mitigation strategy drive up costs. Hydro is low cost, low CO2, has inherent energy storage properties, and generally a favorable energy source but there's only so many rivers worth a dam.

        One complaint of nuclear power plants is that costs go up

        • PV is and will remain for decades more the electricity source with the greatest potential for cost reduction, what is is not necessarily what will be.

          All I'm saying is that net zero is possible with renewables. Would we have more resources to spare for consumption with nuclear? Maybe, but it's not like we will have to eat the bugs without it. We're productive enough to make it work with renewables with good living standards.

  • My country is probably ahead of the US in this respect, but the largest problems here are caused by industry electrification which is already curtailing new industrial grid connections right now. Tesla is fishing in the same pond for supercharger sites, so it's a problem for them but EV's an sich are only a small part of the problem on the whole.

    Will be an even bigger problem for Apple, which will want to bring up a charger network from scratch.

  • Patty Poppe and Pedro Pizarro?

    I think I see what it takes to get ahead in the Power Production world.
  • by nukenerd ( 172703 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:33AM (#63727212)
    Loads of people, including little me, and not least the electricity generating industry itself, have been saying this for a long time. The only people who haven't are those who think electricity is made by the fairies in the cavities in their house walls.

    So why does this jerk Musk suddenly get headlines for saying "Me too".
    • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @07:49AM (#63727712)

      So why does this jerk Musk suddenly get headlines for saying "Me too".

      I don't know why I have to explain this, but Musk can't sell electric cars if people start having problems with charging them. He has platform and reach, so it is not surprising that he would use it to point out significant systemic issues that pose existential risk to his wealth.

  • We have all been saying this for years. Along with the need to bulk up baseload generation using Nuclear etc.

    Funny how as those saying such things are then labeled "climate deniers", but as soon as Musk thinks he has thought up the issue...

    If you want to solve this issue everyone will need to bulk up on baseload generation. Wind and solar are too intermittent, which is what is causing this concern. Battery storage is going to be difficult as EV's will compete for access to the batteries, which are not made

  • by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:49AM (#63727244)

    Though funnily enough Tesla batteries can help address this problem... ;)

  • by coop247 ( 974899 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @08:43AM (#63727894)
    He also predicted millions of self driving taxies by like 2020 and most recently said "hyperinflation" was coming literally as moderate inflation was going down.

    Being rich doesnt make you smart.
  • > In recent days he has reiterated those concerns, predicting U.S. consumption of
    > electricity, driven in part by battery-powered vehicles, will triple by around 2045.

    EVs would represent a very small bump in power use. I ran the numbers a while ago and I don't think they've changed that much:

    https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/future-grid-energy-in-the-not-so-distance/

    I believe total miles per year has gone back up, but not a lot. In contrast, wind and PV have gotten significantly better in those nine years.

  • by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:45AM (#63728436)

    Why do we care about what this con-man says?

Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine

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