Electricity

Trump has stated that within 12 months of becoming President, our electric bills will be cut in half.

How is this possible? If Elon Musk or Samsung release a large format silver battery, utilities can charge them on off hours for free and use them in peak times. We could double or triple our electrical output for a very low cost. I wonder if the utilities will pass this savings on to the consumer as Trump believes.

David DeGerolamo

    
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Joe Blow
Joe Blow
2 months ago

Cheeto Jesus is in campaign mode… Remember “Lock her up!”?

foot in the forest
foot in the forest
2 months ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

Goes right along with “deport them all”.

Al Buckner
Al Buckner
2 months ago

Sorry, Trump this won’t happen. Talk about policy not about things that will give the fake media things to use their talking heads to brow beat their masses.
In Michigan electric is high and they want to raise rates every year and the grills are getting worse.
I have everything that will run on natural gas. Natural gas and propane is cheap for now.

Daniel K Day
Daniel K Day
2 months ago

Not to argue with you, but if the utilities used at least some of their savings for new inventory of backup transformers, internet-independent control and communications systems, improved security for internet-connected systems, and other issues that better-informed people than I can name, I might consider that money well spent.

Phil1350
Phil1350
2 months ago

As a former retired Power Generation employee, the answer will be NO.

Michael
Michael
2 months ago

I think Trump is being bombastic for the political theater.

Now if we were to fast track nuclear reactors and overcome the NIMBY folks electricity could be really cheap.

If other nations can have a reactor online in 18 months why not America?

Michael
Michael
2 months ago
Reply to  DRenegade

David, with respect off peak electricity requires Excessive Base Load Electricity.

Not enough electricity for base load due to “Green Tech” and eliminating current bas load coal and natty gas plants IS the problem. Nuclear power is my suggestion as it is PROVEN cheaper in many other countries than all but Norway’s hydropower.

That and as other posters said Plenty of Gov.com regulations and duties-taxes add to the cost per KWH.

Storage helps, no doubt, but the cost of that storage vs the cost savings is also in question.

My solar systems deep cycle batteries do not have a Maintenace free forever lifecycle.

I’ve priced out Telsa’s Powerwall but even they don’t promise a lifecycle before replacement at a price point cheaper amp hour per amp hour than my deep cycle batteries.

It’s currently cheaper for me to be ON the Grid but I am willing to pay for the peace of mind of having lights when storm damage cripples my local grid.

anon2
anon2
2 months ago
Reply to  DRenegade

I’m glad you’re pointing out to people they “missed the point”.
But if it was me, I’d say something like “the point is…” or “this leads me to conclude…” or I think this means…”
but then, I’m less subtle about things 🙂
if your question is if utilities will pass on savings, of course not.
if Trump is naive or ingenuous to believe they will, yeah too.
I however agree with most of the “off-point” comments as being more pertinent/salient to the whole topic!

Michael
Michael
2 months ago
Reply to  DRenegade

How? We are quite near brownouts now from loss of Base Power load generation. AC demand peaking and adding even more users with EV’s doesn’t seem to make that better.

I have battery storage, it doesn’t make my solar panels more powerful, they still produce depending on the amount of solar energy strikes them.

The batteries give me reserves BECAUSE I can generate more power than I use and even then, chemical limits make storage losses just something to plan for.

No extra power doesn’t resolve because you have fancy storage batteries.

But I am open for an engineering explanation or links to one.

Francis W. Porretto
Francis W. Porretto
2 months ago

The behavior of utilities is often at variance with what microeconomics predicts. They normally have little or no competition, and they usually have only one product. Worse, the product is one that the great majority of their customers cannot effectively save or conserve. That minimizes the utility’s incentives to behave as most other vendors would. Exceptions are few.
The best thing for lowering electrical rates would be competition, which is usually impossible to establish without government intervention and subsidy. Besides, imagining governments — which are themselves monopolies — doing something to create competition where there is none, and where that lack is an integral contributor to governments’ power, is very difficult.

Thirdworldfarmer
Thirdworldfarmer
2 months ago

Electricity has nearly doubled (much like fossil fuels) since trump left himself out of office.Regulatory excesses ,coupled with the bloated bureaucracy that accompanies it drives up prices and gives chair warming jobs to otherwise unemployable suckups.Please remember diesel makes everything we have & have built happen- when that price goes up EVERYTHING goes up.Have not yet seen an electric tractor that can do 170 PTO hp for 12 hours straight- if that gets built & doesn’t cost $200000 AND the charging grid available,then perhaps…….

Patriot_One
Patriot_One
2 months ago

Don’t get too excited. If you listen to the experts on this, there is not enough silver mined to take advantage of this breakthrough. There will be a silver shortage almost overnight. This silver battery technology will need to develop more, maybe with a silver alloy. I don’t know if there is enough silver in the ground to make this breakthrough feasible. I see us hitting a wall with the current level of silver production. Having said this, the price of silver will explode but probably will be confiscated from ordinary citizens.

Alex Thrace
Alex Thrace
2 months ago

Nothing is free. Batteries store charge but can only produce DC. Our system requires AC. Conversion technology is well developed but costly. Inverters to produce transmission level voltages cannot be made with an Inverter. Most like a Motor/Generator set but these are very expensive and have significant losses.
But yeah it can work. Increasing output yo max (the most efficient point) to charge the batteries is a good plan but the batteries will be in no way inexpensive.

Silver Dolphins
Silver Dolphins
2 months ago

If this battery works, it will be a great thing. Power companies have used off peak power to store energy in pumped storage units like Bad Creek. I could see the effectiveness of having large battery storage facilities to take on unused wind and solar generated power. Whether the cost savings rolls down to the user will depend on the Utility Commision.

thexrayboy
thexrayboy
2 months ago

Trump can promise whatever he wants but the laws of physics don’t care what politicians promise. Energy production costs money. That money has to come from somewhere. It either comes from users paying for the energy or it comes from taxes. Either way Americans PAY FOR IT. There is no such thing as a free lunch and promising one is the sin ALL politicians are guilty of.