Large electric vehicles are definitely here

[J&JD]

One of these big guys quietly rolled up to our home today to collect the garbage:

Republic Services Is Rolling Out Industry's First Fully Integrated Electric Recycling and Waste Trucks

/PRNewswire/ -- Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE: RSG), a leader in the environmental services industry, today announced plans to significantly scale its electric...

www.prnewswire.com

 

[lostinfla]

Give it a few weeks. The brakes will announce it's arrival.

 

[Holdmybeer]

Electric vehicles are ideally suited to urban operations like garbage collection, delivery services and the like. The only caveat for me is that with the scaling back in incentives for renewable energy, especially the big two, wind and solar, coupled to increasing demand,.ie., electrification in transportation, the mega AI complexes, crypto farms. Where are the KW's going to come from and at what cost?
Here in Texas, were it not for the, albeit relatively minor, contribution to the grid from wind and solar we'd be in dire straits, especially when we get into the dog days just ahead.
The sticky wicket for the EV industry will be that if the cost of a KW rises inversely to the cost of fossil fuels, what's next?

 

[redbaron]

France has developed a nuclear plant that runs on the spent / used material and is considered a solution to the long term effects of nuclear waste.
This could be a solution that makes sense.

 

[Holdmybeer]

France has developed a nuclear plant that runs on the spent / used material and is considered a solution to the long term effects of nuclear waste.
This could be a solution that makes sense.

The problem with Nuclear is simply this: How do you convince investors that's it makes more sense to invest billions in building and operating a Nuclear Power Generating Facility as opposed to building a Toll Road. It's not either/or, but the sentiment around the concept of toll roads isn't likely to shift in 10 or 20 years. Nuclear is ubiquitous in Europe, over here it's a political hot potato.

 

[newmarokie]

I agree with everything said above. That article is over two years old. I would be curious to know what the actual days in service record is now and if they have continued on with the replacement schedule. I would also like to hear what the electrification cost is for one facility that goes fully electric. One thing that is not discussed enough, in my opinion, is that every vehicle that goes into operation is one less tank full of fuel that is not transported through pipelines and road tankers. It is one more "tank full" of fuel that has to be transported on the already overtaxed transmission line system that also serves our homes and businesses. I truly see the merit in electrification for some, but there are several moving pieces of the overall puzzle that are not being factored in.

 

[DennisT]

Agree, the transmission and overall generation capacity need to be addressed before we can really go down this path.

We can’t have people on television touting their commitment to the environment by going all electric and, at the same time, asking people to turn up their thermostat so they don’t start having brown outs due to over taxing the grid. Someone really needs to look at the overall path and make good decisions about how to proceed properly.

Heard they are building a new Nuke plant in TX and the one I used to work at in Ohio, which was scheduled to be decommissioned, was started back up instead. Another 900+ MW generation capacity back on the grid from my old plant.

They need to bring back the ceramic core Nuke plants that were designed back in the late 80s - inherently safe as the ceramic core transferred heat so fast you could not melt one down. Of course the companies involved at the time put a stop to that as they would have lost their business in building them.