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As I may have mentioned to our Beloved Readers, this week I went and leased an electric car, so now I will be simply insufferable on the topic for a while, at least until there’s some new book or anime that captures my attention and that becomes the only thing I talk about. ADHD is such fun! Also, if you can catch it, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is moving and eloquent and hell of a lot of fun, both the manga and anime versions.
Today, like any good greenie, I’m reusing some thoughts that started out as the intro to yesterday’s story, and unlike most of our plastics, ideas are highly recyclable. One of the evergreen arguments that comes up in discussions of climate policy is that we shouldn’t delude ourselves that electric vehicles are any kind of solution to climate change, because to truly eliminate greenhouse emissions, it would make more sense to do something else, which depending on the person/argument, may or may not be a serious proposal.
As an advocate for decarbonizing everydamnthing as soon as we possibly can, I’m very sympathetic to many of those arguments and skeptical of others, especially if someone’s talking about a wholesale remake of the world or the economy that might take a bit longer than the decade or so available to sharply reduce emissions enough to prevent the worst possible climate outcomes.
Probably the two most important things to keep in mind here: EVs are only one part of the overall strategy for getting off the fossil fuel teat. The solutions will also have to include decarbonizing our transportation, energy production, industries, food supply chains, and our homes. Among others. The other is that efforts to curb global warming must prioritize areas where we can get the biggest emissions reductions for the least cost, and with the least resistance (where possible).
But to make any meaningful effect on climate change, we need to tackle the greatest existing sources of greenhouse emissions as quickly as possible. As we've noted previously, cars and trucks are responsible for roughly a fifth of US America’s carbon dioxide emissions. Everything we do to cut those emissions, from how we personally get around to national energy and industrial policy, will be vital, because US per capita greenhouse emissions remain the highest in the world.
Like it or no (and there are so many reasons not to like it!) the 20th Century’s political and economic powers-that-were-and-mostly-still-are bequeathed to us an America that is designed around motor vehicles and personal vehicle ownership. Just swapping out all those internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles for electric-powered ones won’t address all the problems caused by pervasive car culture, like traffic congestion, insanely long commutes from where workers can afford to live to where the jobs are, the disruption of communities by highways and endless construction, the miserable state of most public transportation, and all the other ills resulting from needing a car to get anywhere, to name a few.
The good thing is that nobody who’s serious about climate action is arguing for a one-to-one replacement of every ICE vehicle with an EV. They may argue a lot about what the right policy mix should be, but there’s broad agreement that along with making cars cleaner, we need to move toward fewer cars whenever possible, which has to include zoning, transit systems, and urban design that makes not having a car not just tolerable, but preferable for most people.
Happily, almost any strategy you can name to reduce our vehicular population is also moving forward at one level or another, many of them with a boost from Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. How much of the IRA can or will be chopped to little pieces after Donald Trump takes office remains to be seen, but even there the outlook isn’t altogether gloomy, especially as blue states keep making their own progress on the energy transition.
Policy-wise, anything that encourages or bludgeons the auto industry to shift most or all of its new vehicle fleet to zero-carbon options matters, because the average life of new vehicles keeps increasing; it’s around 12 to 15 years currently, a huge improvement over the 10 years/100,000 miles normal at the start of this century. But that means that the “natural” replacement cycle of existing vehicles will slow, too. Today’s gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs will be on the road for years to come.
To get older, more polluting cars off the roads, states (and one hopes, an eventual federal government run by sane people) can can follow California’s lead and create targeted “cash for clunkers” programs that help low-income folks replace their unreliable but “affordable” gas guzzlers with a new or used EV that fits their budget, or even replace that car with an ebike or a long-term transit pass, at least in places where transit is a thing. (And again, hell yes we need more clean convenient transit everywhere, too!)
Ultimately, we want our electricity to come primarily from carbon-free sources, which will include nuclear, although new nuke plants can’t be built quickly enough to significantly reduce national emissions. But even if a lot of EVs continue to be charged, as they are now, by a mix of clean and fossil energy, that will win us significant carbon reductions. Even considering the larger amount of energy that goes into manufacturing them, EVs have only about a quarter of lifetime carbon emissions of comparable ICE vehicles, and the minerals needed to build and fuel them are a teensy fraction of the amount of mining and refining needed to sustain fossil fueled vehicles.
Are EVs right for everyone right now? Nope, not by a long shot. They’re a developing technology, and the charging infrastructure isn’t yet built out enough to make EVs practical for lots of people who don’t have a garage or driveway where they can charge up, for just one example. But as with other parts of the energy transition, the efficiency and lower costs of electrification will drive innovation and infrastructure, so by the time most cars still in use are electric, the infrastructure — and the urban design, and alternate forms of transportation, and the rest of it — should keep up.
Gee, I hardly even talked about my own damn EV in this one! I think next week I should write about common myths about EVs, because debunking is always fun.
Why Are We Doing EVs When The Problem Is Cars Themselves?
As I may have mentioned to our Beloved Readers, this week I went and leased an electric car, so now I will be simply insufferable on the topic for a while, at least until there’s some new book or anime that captures my attention and that becomes the only thing I talk about. ADHD is such fun! Also, if you can catch it, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is moving and eloquent and hell of a lot of fun, both the manga and anime versions.
Today, like any good greenie, I’m reusing some thoughts that started out as the intro to yesterday’s story, and unlike most of our plastics, ideas are highly recyclable. One of the evergreen arguments that comes up in discussions of climate policy is that we shouldn’t delude ourselves that electric vehicles are any kind of solution to climate change, because to truly eliminate greenhouse emissions, it would make more sense to do something else, which depending on the person/argument, may or may not be a serious proposal.
As an advocate for decarbonizing everydamnthing as soon as we possibly can, I’m very sympathetic to many of those arguments and skeptical of others, especially if someone’s talking about a wholesale remake of the world or the economy that might take a bit longer than the decade or so available to sharply reduce emissions enough to prevent the worst possible climate outcomes.
Probably the two most important things to keep in mind here: EVs are only one part of the overall strategy for getting off the fossil fuel teat. The solutions will also have to include decarbonizing our transportation, energy production, industries, food supply chains, and our homes. Among others. The other is that efforts to curb global warming must prioritize areas where we can get the biggest emissions reductions for the least cost, and with the least resistance (where possible).
Why Transition To EVs At All? Shouldn’t We Just Get Rid Of Cars? We Need Public Transit! Walkable Cities! Just Walk Or Bike For Chrissake!
Yeah, that subhead is a bit of a strawperson, because you know I’m going to say we need all of the above over the long term, even as we shift toward electrifying our personal transportation.But to make any meaningful effect on climate change, we need to tackle the greatest existing sources of greenhouse emissions as quickly as possible. As we've noted previously, cars and trucks are responsible for roughly a fifth of US America’s carbon dioxide emissions. Everything we do to cut those emissions, from how we personally get around to national energy and industrial policy, will be vital, because US per capita greenhouse emissions remain the highest in the world.
Like it or no (and there are so many reasons not to like it!) the 20th Century’s political and economic powers-that-were-and-mostly-still-are bequeathed to us an America that is designed around motor vehicles and personal vehicle ownership. Just swapping out all those internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles for electric-powered ones won’t address all the problems caused by pervasive car culture, like traffic congestion, insanely long commutes from where workers can afford to live to where the jobs are, the disruption of communities by highways and endless construction, the miserable state of most public transportation, and all the other ills resulting from needing a car to get anywhere, to name a few.
The good thing is that nobody who’s serious about climate action is arguing for a one-to-one replacement of every ICE vehicle with an EV. They may argue a lot about what the right policy mix should be, but there’s broad agreement that along with making cars cleaner, we need to move toward fewer cars whenever possible, which has to include zoning, transit systems, and urban design that makes not having a car not just tolerable, but preferable for most people.
Happily, almost any strategy you can name to reduce our vehicular population is also moving forward at one level or another, many of them with a boost from Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. How much of the IRA can or will be chopped to little pieces after Donald Trump takes office remains to be seen, but even there the outlook isn’t altogether gloomy, especially as blue states keep making their own progress on the energy transition.
What Will Get Us There?
Remaking urban environments and an entire transportation system can’t be done in a single decade. Neither can getting all fossil-fueled cars off the road, but we can certainly accomplish significant carbon reductions by pushing the auto industry to shift most of its production to low and zero-emissions vehicles, which as we noted yesterday is what the industry wants, too. (Or at least it sees EVs as inevitable, and it wants predictable federal regulations so it can plan for the transition.)Policy-wise, anything that encourages or bludgeons the auto industry to shift most or all of its new vehicle fleet to zero-carbon options matters, because the average life of new vehicles keeps increasing; it’s around 12 to 15 years currently, a huge improvement over the 10 years/100,000 miles normal at the start of this century. But that means that the “natural” replacement cycle of existing vehicles will slow, too. Today’s gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs will be on the road for years to come.
To get older, more polluting cars off the roads, states (and one hopes, an eventual federal government run by sane people) can can follow California’s lead and create targeted “cash for clunkers” programs that help low-income folks replace their unreliable but “affordable” gas guzzlers with a new or used EV that fits their budget, or even replace that car with an ebike or a long-term transit pass, at least in places where transit is a thing. (And again, hell yes we need more clean convenient transit everywhere, too!)
Don’t EVs Just Shift Emissions To Power Plants?
Needless to say, even as we reduce the overall number of cars in America, all those EVs will need lots of zero carbon electricity, as will the rest of the economy. We need to green and expand the power grid at the same time our transportation gets cleaner, and for a model of how to get there, we should look at, believe it or not, China, which is simultaneously the single greatest source of carbon emissions and the country doing the most to speed along its energy transition, both through widespread EV adoption and deployment of renewable energy. And hey, let’s do it without massive surveillance and oppression, maybe.Ultimately, we want our electricity to come primarily from carbon-free sources, which will include nuclear, although new nuke plants can’t be built quickly enough to significantly reduce national emissions. But even if a lot of EVs continue to be charged, as they are now, by a mix of clean and fossil energy, that will win us significant carbon reductions. Even considering the larger amount of energy that goes into manufacturing them, EVs have only about a quarter of lifetime carbon emissions of comparable ICE vehicles, and the minerals needed to build and fuel them are a teensy fraction of the amount of mining and refining needed to sustain fossil fueled vehicles.
Are EVs right for everyone right now? Nope, not by a long shot. They’re a developing technology, and the charging infrastructure isn’t yet built out enough to make EVs practical for lots of people who don’t have a garage or driveway where they can charge up, for just one example. But as with other parts of the energy transition, the efficiency and lower costs of electrification will drive innovation and infrastructure, so by the time most cars still in use are electric, the infrastructure — and the urban design, and alternate forms of transportation, and the rest of it — should keep up.
Gee, I hardly even talked about my own damn EV in this one! I think next week I should write about common myths about EVs, because debunking is always fun.
