Here’s a question: how big is the entire power plant fleet in your country compared to the fleet of vehicles? Craig Morris investigated the matter for Germany. Before you read on, take a guess: which one is bigger? Germany’s private car fleet is some 40 times bigger than its entire conventional power fleet: 4,300 GW vs. 107 GW. And while these power plants run at around half of their rated capacity over the year, cars are only used on average an hour a day – and their motors are vastly overpowered for the tasks they generally perform. A capacity factor (CF) reflects how much energy a unit produces relative to how much it could if running full-blast. The German power plant fleet runs at around half capacity (48%), and that number is even dropping because wind and solar are offsetting conventional power faster than plants close. Critics of renewables say this trend is wasteful, but less fossil and nuclear power is the goal of the Energiewende, not some unintended, undesirable outcome. If you want to … Continue reading Private car ownership is ridiculously wasteful