Will We See an Electric Power Squeeze?
To start with, lets assume that after 5 years, there will be 50 million E.V. on the road, not an unreasonable assumption. The average electric automobile can drive about1 mile using 0.4 kwh at the wheel. This, of course, does not take into account the energy loss between power generator, transmissions, transformer and batteries, amounting to about to 1.5 kwh for every kwh at the wheels, or an extra 0.27 kwh per mile. Thus the actual generated power needed is 0.67 kwh for each mile driven. Assuming an average car drives 10,000 miles per year, it will need 6,700 kwh of electricity. Multiplying that by 50 million cars will require 335 billion kwh of electricity per year just to charge the batteries.. Since a typical coal or gas fired electric power plants can generate 3.5 billion kwh per year, one will need (335 divided by 3,5) equals 96 new generating stations just to charge batteries. This amount of power needed is in addition to the current power needs for industry and households. Unfortunately, it takes about 10 years from the planning, permits and actual construction to build a new power station. Even more time, about 20 years are needed to build a nuclear power plant. Using wind mills and solar cells as power sources does help, except such green energy needs conventional power stations for back-up in case of nighttime or storms (when wind turbines cant run). This means, that we may see major power shortages within the coming years which my lead to rationing and certainly higher electricity prices. In fact, were already seeing this in California, which has been beleaguered by energy shortages due to government mismanagement of the states resources. As a result, roughly one in five electric vehicles owners in California have wound up switching back to gas powered cars, precisely because it is difficult to re-charge their means of transportation. In my blog of September 25, 2020 (Will electric cars drive oil off the market?), I advised you not to give up on oil. At that time you could buy a share of a major oil company for $ 41 which now trades at $ 64. Not a bad profit! I see a similar opportunity for an investor to cash in on the expected electric power shortages by buying shares of utilities, where higher prices mean higher profits. In any case, dont give up on your old gasoline driven car yet.