Commentary: Electrify A Lot … But Not Everything -- Decarbonization Will Require a Judicious Mix of Electrification, RNG, Hydrogen, and Other Emerging Solutions if We Want to Get to a Truly Sustainable Future.

by Matt Tomich and Joanna Underwood (BioCycle Magazine/Energy Vision) ... Some environmental advocates are looking to “electrify everything” to generate power and fuel our transportation systems, because electric motors are more efficient than combustion engines. But electrification is not a panacea. Take the transportation sector, for example, which emits the largest share of U.S. greenhouse gases or GHGs (28%). Electric batteries work well for passenger cars and other light duty vehicles, eliminating their tailpipe emissions, which can go a long way to decarbonization. But that’s not the whole story. Electric vehicles (EVs), in terms of their overall impact on the climate, environment, and public health, are only as clean as the energy sources charging their batteries, and the materials in them. If they are charged with solar, wind or other renewable sources, they would approach true zero emissions. But if their power comes from fossil fuel plants, the smokestack emissions from those plants are part of EVs’ overall “lifecycle” emissions.

In 2017, 62% of all U.S. power came from fossil fuels (30% from coal, 32% from fossil natural gas). Even California, which has a highly developed renewables market, got 56% of its power from fossil natural gas.

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Then there is the issue of how EVs’ lithium/cobalt/nickel batteries are produced. Cobalt is mined mostly in the poor, unstable Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it’s linked to child labor and deaths. Nickel mining and smelting generate high levels of toxic dust and air and water pollution. We can’t turn a blind eye to these challenges. Like all other energy technologies, batteries’ impacts need to be evaluated on a lifecycle basis, across their whole supply chain.

EVs also have documented performance problems. EV batteries lose 40% of their range in cold weather, according to an AAA study, and often don’t work well in heavy-duty transport applications, such as trains, buses and heavy trucks.

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Fuel cells haven’t worked well in heavy vehicles yet either. Witness the troubles of Nikola, whose CEO resigned this fall amid accusations he tried to pass off a semi rolling downhill as running on hydrogen.

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One that is already succeeding is renewable natural gas (RNG), aka biomethane, an ultra-low-carbon fuel made from organic waste. More than 50,000 trucks and buses already run on it.

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RNG, made from waste, is a 100% renewable fuel, and the lowest carbon fuel available today — partly because RNG production captures the methane that rotting organic wastes would otherwise emit, and refines them into fuel. When food wastes and manures are the feedstocks, making RNG captures more GHGs (methane) than vehicles emit when burning it (carbon dioxide). So it’s not just zero-carbon, but net carbon-negative, over its lifecycle. That means RNG could potentially drive truck and bus GHG emissions below zero. Every truck and bus fleet converted to RNG would meet and exceed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2050 emissions goals — not 30 years from now, but immediately.

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New buildings can and should be powered by solar or other renewables, but there is a strong case to be made for switching the 48% of existing homes currently using fossil gas to RNG. It would require no up-front costs and confer many benefits. Not only can RNG slash GHG emissions compared to fossil gas, it also improves air quality, since it is nearly pure methane and burns much cleaner than fossil gas.

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The more carbon-negative RNG carried in our natural gas pipelines, the more the climate impacts of existing natural gas infrastructure will be reduced.

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The growing push to move away from combustion is a mostly positive development, but it makes no sense not to avail ourselves of a renewable, carbon-negative biofuel like RNG in the misguided zeal to “electrify everything.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: GLICK UNBOUND: ... (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Commissioner Rich) Glick also suggested that FERC would need to find ways to incentivize new long transmission lines to carry renewable power from the Midwest into population centers on the coasts.

He proposed re-examining Order 1000, which created competition for long power lines, and adding direct incentives for transmission lines that help carry out state policy objectives like increased renewable energy. "We are going to need to build out the grid much more significantly," he said. "Incoming President Biden has goals, states have goals, and a lot of those goals are not going to be met unless we can access significant amount of renewable resources and we need to build out the grid more significantly than we have been." READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: BATTERIES, BY THE NUMBERS:Lithium-ion battery pack prices were above $1,100 per kilowatt-hour in 2010. Now, they've fallen 89 percent in real terms to $137/kWh in 2020, and by 2023, average prices will be close to $100/kWh, according to the latest forecast from research company BloombergNEF. That 2023 price point should allow automakers to produce and sell mass market EVs at the same price as comparable internal combustion vehicles in some markets, according to BloombergNEF.

"What's more, our analysis shows that even if prices for raw materials were to return to the highs seen in 2018, it would only delay average prices reaching $100/kWh by two years — rather than completely derailing the industry," said James Frith, BNEF's head of energy storage research and lead author of the report, in a statement. READ MORE