Jac on Nostr: Agree. Fully electric cars make sense in an urban environment, where freight is ...

Agree. Fully electric cars make sense in an urban environment, where freight is concerned the grid simply doesn’t have the capacity. Rail is already electric, powered by diesel; there is no easier scenario for grid electrification than rail, the problem is scale. Trains use a phenomenal amount of power, one engine can use as much as 13,400kw. I don’t see many one engine freight trains here in the western US, and that is one train. We just don’t have the production capacity or the infrastructure to support freight motivation by electricity.
Another problem is that electric power transmission is extremely inefficient. Transform voltages up, transform them down, losses through every transformation and there is no way to store AC power, if the generation stops, so does the grid. Just imagine the mess that would ensue through a blackout or even the random outage.