By 2030, Tesla plans to produce nearly 20 million electric vehicles… per year. A volume that should accompany a global trend, driven by regulations aimed at restricting and then prohibiting the sale of some internal combustion vehicles. But this development will not happen without posing a major problem, which is likely to affect many aspects of our daily lives.
The South African billionaire isn’t just busy transforming X.com. Between two well-inspired tweets, he is also busy revolutionizing the galaxy with his other companies. But, humanity might not be moving fast enough to keep up.
Exploding demand for insufficient supply
Elon Musk helped propel electric cars into a new dimension. Often objects of curiosity, they have long been decried for their many flaws compared to thermal vehicles, having proven themselves for decades. The arrival of the Tesla Roadster, equipped with lithium-ion batteries, demonstrated that electricity could be the fuel for mobility in the 21st century.e century.
But to power thousands…sorry, millions of electric vehicles, you need a lot of electricity. According to PG&E, energy distributor for much of California, demand could increase by 70% over the next two decades. McKinsey, meanwhile, predicts a 100% increase for the whole of the United States by 2050. However, in the land of Uncle Sam, production has only increased by 1% each year. since the beginning of the century, a scale that is also found in other developed countries.
A real headache for Elon Musk, who is already forecasting major electricity shortages due to weak supply over the next two years. ” I can’t stress enough that we need more electricity he said at an energy conference. ” No matter how much electricity you think you need, we need more “.
Even more batteries to the rescue of electric cars and… AI
In fact, power grids around the world are already increasingly strained. Heat waves, cold spells, fuel shortages, are all factors that test our increasingly electrified societies. However, electricity producers are investing colossal sums, both in the energy transition and in the renovation and modernization of existing power plants. Insufficient, believes the South African billionaire, who calls on the sector and regulators to redouble their efforts. ” We really need to speed up the schedule and have a great sense of urgency “, he says.
Along with Tesla, he is already actively participating in this war effort, selling solar panels and storage batteries to individuals and utilities. Batteries could, he says, help boost production in the first place. Indeed, he proposes to optimize this by running power plants 24 hours a day, and storing unused energy in battery farms for later use. ” I’m not sure we can double the energy production “, he comments, “ but we are talking about an increase of at least 50% in total energy production “. Not enough to convince everyone, far from it.
There is another sector that will need a lot of electricity in the years to come. The growing use of artificial intelligence, and in particular programs such as ChatGPT, promises to consume more and more energy and resources as it evolves and becomes more widespread. For the South African billionaire, shortages could hamper the development of the sector, which is bad news both for his AI projects, but also for other aspects of his activities. It remains to be seen whether one of the most influential human beings on the planet will manage, as he did with the automobile and the space industry, to give new impetus to the electricity sector.
Source : The Wall Street Journal
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