Posted: 6/6/2019 Reviewed/updated: 6/7/2019
Just did a rough back of the envelope calculation on how much electricity production capacity would be needed per annum if all passenger vehicles in the U.S. were to be converted to electrical vehicles in an instant.
The numbers are truly shocking and I can only hope I made a serious calculation error!
Here are the inputs:
Item
|
Specs
|
Value
|
Unit
|
Electrical passenger vehicle
|
25 kWh per 100 miles
|
250
|
Wh/mile
|
Nuclear power reactor
|
1,000 MW capacity
|
8,640,000,000,000
|
Wh/year
|
Transportation
|
Total U.S. vehicle miles for light duty vehicles in 2017
|
2,220,801,000,000
|
miles/year
|
Notes: 25 KWh per 100 miles is probably a conservative number
Here are the results:
Item
|
Value
|
Unit
|
Estimated total electricity consumption by electrical passenger vehicles
|
555,200,250,000,000
|
Wh/year
|
Estimated required number of 1,000 MW capacity nuclear reactors
|
64
|
Count
|
Summary
Given the 2.2 trillion vehicle miles per year on U.S. streets and highways, we would need about 64 nuclear power reactors with 1,000 MW capacity just to generate the electricity for all the electric passenger vehicles. Currently, there are only a total of 98 operating nuclear power plants in the U.S.!
P.S. I did a double check calculation on a daily basis instead of per annum and the results were very similar, i.e. more than 60 nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 1000 MW would be needed to power all electric passenger vehicles.
Sources:
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