With the trend of replacing fossil-fueled cars by electric vehicles, how much of the increase in electric power generation will be required to replace 1.2 billion existing cars, disregarding trucks and motorcycles in the coming years?
Nice question, this scenario will never become real. Assuming it will become, we will direct the use of conventional resources more to electricity production but less to make gasoline and Diesel that are currently used as car fuels. I hope the next question will not be . There will be never too much oil but it can be used for many other energy sectors, chemical industry etc. Also, conventional resources will never end to be naturally generated but their accumulation rate is much slower than consumption rate. For sure that in your scenario we must rely more on various alternative energy resources to make electricity (biomass, biogas, wind, hydro, PV, geothermal), maybe also nuclear that is more and more controversial. There would be enough resources to fulfill this need but a different reallocation of natural and alternative resources should be considered.
good question.
There are several methods to produce electric energy such as: conversion of solar energy, wind energy. Power plants which produce electricity from fuel through combustion, Electricity from nuclear sources, and so on.
With my best regards!
Dr. Adel OUESLATI
Diversifying energy sources for vehicles , the biofuels should be the best solution
Dear Sergio
I think it is almost impossible to imagine a world without any machine that uses fossil fuel. For the case of cars and vehicles, it is really possible to use renewable power if u mean how is it possible to charge their batteries. I think, If we use the produced power from fossil fuel based power plants to charge the batteries, so we are turning around the same circle. But the key can be zero-emission powers, like wind energy, hydrothermal energy, solar energy or even nuclear energy.
Best,
My question is more about how much increase in electric power generation will be required to charge the batteries. I think the 1.2 billion cars will be heavily reduced but electricity will be needed to move cars, trucks and motorcycles. There is not enough electricity.
I found ia interesting information: "The cost of electric batteries, which in 2010 was US $ 1000/kWh, in 2016 was reduced to less than $ 300/kWh. When the cost is reached at US $ 100/kWh, electric vehicles will be cost-compatible to vehicles with internal combustion engines and this evolution is expected so that electric vehicles reach scale by 2030 and can be shortened by new discoveries". Quicly, fossil fuel cars will be reduced and some day the logistics costs of gas distribution will be not more atractive.
📷
it is difficult to predict the future in such relatively little complex question. If electric cars become major transport technologies then the infrastructure needed to operate them will come up and with it also innovations that are difficult to predict. Power is sufficient on this planet and from outside that I have no doubts that sources for electricity will be there, especially as the change does not happen on a Saturday afternoon between 2 and 3 pm, but change will be gradual within the parameters that are possible.
https://www.usp.ac.fj/index.php?id=22667 .
Biofuels require crop land and water that would be better used for food production and biofuels also encourage monoculture. Not the best alternative. I have high hopes for eventual space-based solar power:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2019/03/12/solar-power-stations-in-space-could-supply-the-world-with-limitless-energy/#ae923664386b
To supply the high demand for electrical energy from transportation processes on a global scale. I consider that the increase in the energy and economic optimization of the conversion of solar energy into electrical energy would be essential. Most of humanity is concentrated in the areas of greatest solar radiation on our planet, in addition solar energy is a form of decentralized energy, and free of geopolitical pressures.
The disadvantage of solar energy is in its low energy density. That is why I insist on the need to increase energy efficiency and economic competitiveness of the various processes for converting solar energy into electrical energy.
On the other hand, research into increasing the efficiency and storage capacities of electrical energy is getting deeper. This fact guarantees greater energy advantages and economic feasibility of electric vehicles. The electrical energy generated from wind energy will have great weight in energy supply to the electrocos cars.
Thats a good question.
The big problem is no one has worked out the answer yet!
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_End_of_the_Automobile_Era
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