Does More Need To Be Said?

Updates

April 26, 2014: they're gonna be burning a lot of coal in China if this succeeds. Tesla plans to sell as many cars in China as in the US in the next three or four years. 

Later, 12:45 pm central time: I don't recommend it unless you have a lot of time to waste, but the comments to the article linked below reveal how little science folks use these days in framing their arguments and to the degree that "emotion" is used to make decisions.
 
When one goes through the comments, it is amazing how many folks argue for solar power. When I see an individual advocating solar power, I know that the individual is either a) ignorant about energy; and/or b) has a very, very, very long time horizon -- at least one century or one hundred years, whichever comes first.

After three decades of governments worldwide incentivizing solar power, the total amount of global energy supplied by "solar power" is probably less than a percent. Wow, was I ever off. Quick, what do you think? How much global energy is supplied by "solar power"? In percentage? 10%? 5%? 3% 1%?

The answer is here. I've also posted the answer at the bottom of this post in case you don't want to go to the link and search.

Okay, so we've gotten that out of the way.

The next question is, of course, if we all switched to EVs today (here in the US), would the "grid" be able to handle it? Not even close. We can hardly handle what we require now:

Last winter, bitterly cold weather placed massive stress on the U.S. electrical system―and the system almost broke. On January 7 in the midst of the polar vortex, PJM Interconnection, the Regional Transmission Organization serving the heart of America from New Jersey to Illinois, experienced a new all-time peak winter load of almost 142,000 megawatts.

Eight of the top ten of PJM’s all-time winter peaks occurred in January 2014. Heroic efforts by grid operators saved large parts of the nation’s heartland from blackouts during record-cold temperature days. Nicholas Akins, CEO of American Electric Power, stated in Congressional testimony, “This country did not just dodge a bullet―we dodged a cannon ball.”

Environmental policies established by Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are moving us toward electrical grid failure. The capacity reserve margin for hot or cold weather events is shrinking in many regions. According to Philip Moeller, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “…the experience of this past winter indicates that the power grid is now already at the limit.”

A second group of comments seem to center on whether the numbers are correct. Yes, they are correct. But it's worse (Don has done the math): if you get 210 miles for 75 lbs of coal that is 2.8 miles per pound of coal. At that rate, if you drive a average of 20,000 miles per year, you need 7,142.8 lbs of coal. I assume one would carry the ash in one's trunk. [By the way, the 210 miles on 75 pounds of coal is based on 70 mph and an ambient temp of 0 degrees while driving on I-98 during the winter in North Dakota. Of course, one couldn't drive cross-country in North Dakota because there are no reasonably locatable charging stations.] Wow, three-and-a-half tons of coal for one year of driving a Tesla.

Original Post

From a contributor over at Seeking Alpha:

I'll just jump right into it here: it takes a whopping 35 kg of coal to charge a Model S one time in China. Imagine that; 75+ pounds of coal needed every single time a Model S needs a full charge in China is the cost of its "zero emissions." That is a truly astounding amount of perhaps the dirtiest, least environmentally-friendly fuel on the planet, and anyone who thinks the Model S is zero-emissions is sadly misinformed or naïve. Burning 75 pounds of coal to charge one car, one time is sustainable from a coal supply perspective, as coal is plentiful and cheap, but when you consider the environmental cost, I doubt those who want the S for its environmental impact would be happy to learn this. I am not someone who is overly worried about environmental impact of my daily life, but I find this to be reprehensible.

Source: SeekingAlpha contributor.

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Question and Answer

After three decades of governments worldwide incentivizing solar power, the total amount of global energy supplied by "solar power" is probably less than a percent. Wow, was I ever off. Quick, what do you think? How much global energy is supplied by "solar power"? In percentage? 10%? 5%? 3% 1%? 

The answer is here.

To the point: The latest BP Energy Survey estimates solar PV accounts for only 0.17% of the global market. 

That's the smallest component of any major source.

By comparison, oil accounts for 33%, coal comes in at 30%, and natural gas provides 24%. On the lower end of the scale, there's hydro power at 7% and nuclear at 4%. Even wind and geothermal power (if you've ever been to Iceland, volcanoes provide the power) top solar PV, rounding off the list at just about 1% each.