America is good at making enough electricity to serve its increasingly plugged-in economy. Ample juice is flowing. Problem is, there is no place to plug in.
We are becoming a nation beset by socket insecurity.
Watch the weary traveler in almost any airport, on the hunt for a charging kiosk to save his cell phone before its final tweet. Finding none (or none available), he ends up standing amid the bustle of the airport corridor guarding the gadget as it regains its life force from a lone wall outlet meant for the floor cleaners.
Or witness the coffee shop wars, the glares at the plug hog who is sitting at the corner table. He has laptop, phone and tablet all connected to the only outlets. Wearing headphones, this oblivious energy ominvore is deaf to polite entreaties to share.
California’s Socket Black Market
Socket insecurity is only going to get worse as we transition over to electric cars. The New York Times reported last week that Californians in Silicon Valley are behaving downright rudely at electric vehicle charging stations, unplugging one another, lobbing techie obscenities, and even “creating black markets and side deals to trade spots in corporate parking.”
Yep, socket insecruity is creating a sort new criminal class. But that’s not all. We have a new neurosis as well. It’s called “range anxiety” — the fear of driving an EV because it might run short on power before you reach a charging station. California has a plan to ease range anxiety by creating a spine of EV charging stations from Oregon border south to Baja California — obviously no soon enough.
But there is hope.
Many cities are planning in advance and installing EV chargers. I even found some chargers in my little town of Charlottesville, Virginia, outside of an old Coca-Cola factory that was renovated into a gourmet store.
In addition, more and more communities are installing advanced microgrids (themselves a kind of plug to the larger electric grid). EV charging stations are integral to many microgrids. Designed to provide power during an outage, some microgrids also include special gathering places for recharging cell phones.
It’s worth noting that EV charging stations are becoming greener and more efficient too, as demonstrated by NRG EVgo and Princeton Power Systems at this year’s Solar Decathlon now underway.
As for cell phone charging, more airports are installing stations. And New York City is replacing phone booths with kiosks that offer device charging and high speed wireless access. Other places are considering similar kiosks within ‘smart city’ plans.
And then of course, someday we’ll all have wireless electricity. Some day.
I’d tell you more, but my laptop is running out of juice. So for now, America, where might I plug in?
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