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| © CNET People in Norway love electric cars and are buying them like crazy, but that's going to force big changes on the country's electric grid. |
By Kyle Hyatt, Roadshow
People in Norway just can't seem to get enough of electric cars,
and in many ways, that's an excellent thing. That isn't to say that
there isn't a downside to the proliferation of EVs both in Norway and
around the world.
See, electric cars use a lot of energy. And while charging your
vehicle overnight in your garage may not seem like that big of a deal
when compared to the sheer scale of the electric grid, having a few
thousand cars charging all at once totally is.
That's why -- according to a report published Friday by Reuters
-- Norway is going to have to sink some serious cash into its
electrical infrastructure to be able to support the continued widespread
adoption of electric vehicles.
How much cash exactly? Try 11 billion crowns, which is the equivalent
of $1.27 billion. Now, compared to some of the dollar amounts that get
thrown around for infrastructure projects in the US, that doesn't
necessarily sound that crazy, but when you consider that Norway has a
population numbering around half that of Los Angeles County, things
start to get a little nuts when you scale up.
These upgrades,
according to the study cited by Reuters, would have to happen over the
next 20 years, which makes them, in theory at least, manageable --
except that the study also estimates that the bill for the upgrades
won't be paid for by the Norwegian government, or by the power
companies. It'll be paid for by the end users.
So, what does this all mean to us here in the US? It means that, unless we find some new, clean way
to generate vast amounts of power with minimal expense, we're going to
have to pony up some serious dough if Americans are going to continue to
adopt electric cars at the rate they have been.
