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Letter: Electric cars could cost us more

Surprise, surprise, the electric distribution system will have to be massively upgraded
opinion

I am just throwing this observation out there as I have been interested in all these promises our prime minister is making to reduce global emissions. He wants to move away from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy sources such as electricity.

Now, I don’t know about you but approximately 75 per cent of my electricity charges now are “fees."

According to the Alberta Utilities Commission’s website these fees pay for the expansion, replacement and upgrading of the distributions system. They tell us it is costly to operate a system to provide electricity to customers.

We all know that our current power grid goes down when too many people are using “air conditioning” for example. I’m guessing our current distribution system won’t support a bunch of electric cars.

On August 17, 2021 the CBC news report said there were 3,527 electric vehicles registered in Alberta. There's another 27,500 hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the province. Those numbers are tiny, though, compared with the total of 3.6 million vehicles registered in Alberta.

So what will happen as more and more people buy electric cars? Millions of practically useless electric cars plugged into our distribution system. When I say useless, please research how many miles per charge you will get in your electric car; you can’t even get from Calgary to Edmonton unless you can afford a Tesla! But I digress…..

So, say we add a few million electric cars on the roads in Alberta. Surprise, surprise, the electric distribution system will have to be massively upgraded! You think our fees are high now. The cost to each household for the upgraded system will be huge!

So yes, greenhouse gases will be lowered if we all start using electric cars. I’m thinking it will be because the population of our “global warming conscious” country will be greatly reduced as we starve/freeze to death because we can’t afford food or homes after paying for electrical distribution fees.

Lori Armstrong,

Innisfail

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