Elon Musk has recently given a warning about the world possibly facing electricity shortages due to increased power demand from the growing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and power-hungry technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
Reports from The Wall Street Journal reveal that the CEO of Tesla, which is the world’s biggest fully-electric car manufacturer, shared his concerns on various occasions in the past few weeks.
PG&E, one of the US’s biggest power utilities, recently held a conference where Musk called on energy executives to shorten the time scale for new projects and encouraged a high sense of urgency.
Musk said his biggest concern is that there’s insufficient urgency. “If you have a fairly static electricity demand, which has been the case in the US for a while, it hasn’t changed a lot, then having projects take a long time is okay. But in a rapidly changing scenario, where electricity demand is increasing, we have to move much faster.” – the tech giant entrepreneur added.
Not so long ago, Musk also spoke to an energy conference in Austin that he couldn’t emphasise enough the need for more electricity. “However much electricity you think you need, more than that is needed.”
Elon Musk has given prediction that electricity consumption in the US could triple by 2045, partly thanks to the growing adoption of battery-powered cars. Industry players have also been more conservative about the potential surge in demand.
For instance, PG&E has only forecasted a 70% increase in US electricity demand over the next two decades, while McKinsey has predicted demand will double by 2050. Patti Poppe, the CEO of PG&E, said the company was not taking Musk’s warning lightly.
Poppe told Musk that they are taking notes. “I’m going to be the last person to doubt your predictions for the future.” – Patti added.
Earlier in July, at an event where he was discussing his new start-up, xAI, Musk mentioned that he anticipated electricity shortages within two years due to higher power demand driven by AI growth. “That’s roughly where things are trending,” he said.
If his prediction about shortages are correct, and utilities don’t act soon enough to ward off a potential crisis, other countries might soon be forced to join South Africa in implementing rotational power cuts to reduce demand.
Musk has also proposed the installation of more grid-scale batteries that can store unused electricity during periods of low demand as one of the solutions. Instead of lowering power output from generators during these periods, the produced electricity could be sent to large batteries, which would then supply additional power when demand is higher than the on-demand generators can provide. Musk believes that by doing so, energy output could be improved by between 50–100%.
