An excellent point, Nunio. It adds yet another level of connectedness, which already poses some pretty serious security concerns to us both individually and collectively. More reliance on an increasingly complex and interconnected grid, as greatly increased use of EVs would seem to greatly encourage, would in all likelihood exacerbate the serious security concerns which are already a matter of national security. A hacked electric grid, or for that matter pipelines, train and seaport routing systems, who knows what else - as has happened in Ukraine and elsewhere - could shut us down flat, at least regionally. Its harder to play cyber defense than offense. Sooner of later a failure seems likely and the consequences could be grave.
Years ago, during the Carter administration, I was a solar installer. Head installer for our company for a whileā¦ Did that for about four years and our company grew to among the ten largest in the country, or so the owners claimed - and if they were wrong it wasnāt by a lot. But my point is that I had a good long close up view of āgreen energyā. I can report with confidence that a good part of the ethic back then was directed to making individuals more energy independent. We installed wind machines that powered a farm or two, a house or four. We installed hydronic solar systems that provided domestic hot water for single homes or apartment complexes or, occasionally, whole house heating. We also installed the first photovoltaic system in our area, though the pay-back period on that system back then was nothing to brag about.
We were idealistic back then and thought we were working to build a better system, a better future.
But back then the prevailing idea was that it was desirable to decrease reliance on the grid, disconnect from it if possible. (That vision, of course, got shot down in a hurryā¦ and I, like a great many other workers, went scrambling for lesser jobs.)
But that original vision is not whatās happening today - wind farms and the huge solar collector farms Iām seeing going up now require more reliance on a transmission grid, not less. Our hydronic systems back then had an estimated useful life of at least 75 years - Photovoltaic cells about a third of that, and further pose a recycling challenge. It concerns me how such systems could be hacked or otherwise fail, shutting everyone down simultaneously. Thatās also currently true of coal, gas, hydro, nuke, etc. plants also, but to me it seems like this mass energy production, even if āgreenā, is setting ourselves up for failure. And EVs might contribute greatly to the gravity of such a failure. It would be better to generate on a municipal level.
Donāt get me wrong - Iām not opposed to EVs at all. I want one. (Maybe keep the gassie explicitly for long canoe tripsā¦) But a large scale switch to EVs changes the nature of the landscape we all live in. It behooves us to take the measure of this new landscape and take the proper precautions to assure that it is indeed an improved, rather than merely different, landscape.