The Electrifying End to Life on Earth

April 01, 2024

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Peter Brown (Biofuels Digest) In pursuit of our salvation from climate change we are now engaged in a deliberate effort that will dramatically increase the very polluting toxins that are causing that change. Even more ironically, we will use our ultimate weapon against pollution, the rush to electrification for all things from transportation to providing comfort in our homes.

That rush is putting an immense strain on the grids that will be needed to recharge the billions of new cars, trucks, buses that are slated to go electric over the next ten years. We are faced with a pollution solution that relies almost totally on the main reason why we are at this impasse. Doubling down on this disaster we are phasing out the bright shiny solutions that some of the largest chemical and fuel companies are bringing in by, in some cases, banning the venerable internal combustion engines that have adopted some very strange forms: Wankel, Sterling, Diesel, turbine, hydrogen, steam and others still in development.

But we seem to be betting our existence on the feeblest horse in the race, a horse that has been repeatedly returned to its stables for the same reasons it should stay there.

...

For example The 2021 Tesla Model Y OEM battery (the cheapest Tesla battery) is currently for sale on the Internet for $4,999 not including shipping or installation. The battery weighs 1,000 pounds . It takes 7 years for an electric car to reach net-zero CO2. The life expectancy of the battery is 10 years (average). Only in the last 3 years do you start to reduce your carbon footprint, but then the batteries must be replaced, and you lose all gains made.

What goes into those batteries is not exactly pretty compared to the dirtiest alternatives now in use from fossil fuels.

You must move 250 tons of soil to obtain:

— 26.5 pounds of Lithium

— 30 pounds of nickel

— 48.5 pounds of manganese

— 15 pounds of cobalt

To manufacture the battery also requires:

— 441 pounds of aluminum, steel and/or plastic

— 112 pounds of graphite

The bulk of those minerals for manufacturing the batteries come from China or Africa.

...

Issues with batteries not holding charges in cold weather, and as climate change becomes an issue, this will become serious. You see, an electric car does not produce heat like a real car where the energy of the combustion can be used to actually heat it via the radiator. On an electric the heat is generated by small electric heaters that munch watts. The same applies to the car battery itself, it cannot recharge itself because it is making it go.

The sheer added weight created by the new cars and trucks (Remember the EV revolution will affect all rolling stock on our roads, from electric bicycles to eighteen wheeler could lead to a massive rebuilding of the infrastructure, bridges, roads, parking and safety issues have yet been addressed, from tires to asphalt surfaces, there a number of unknowns.

...

It (internal combustion engine ban) ignores the immense progress made in the creation of alternate fuels that can slot right into existing engines, these include a plethora of biofuels like biodiesel made from a variety of vegetables, animal fats, algae, used cooking oils and more are appearing every day.

...

Well, if you have read just the introduction to the Economics of Climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern that came out in 2005 you would know that the only solution to the crisis must be endorsed and supported by every nation on the planet each and every one of them mitigating and altering the toxic mix to the best of their abilities. It calls for a collective approach where each component dovetails into the others and funds stimulate not just clean air but the economies that they touch. The idea of having charging stations available every 50 or 60 miles or so in places like Africa where the “grid” is intermittent at best is a ludicrous insight into an entitled world.

So how do we intend to keep those billions of EVs up and running, not twenty years from now, but the day after the ICE has been phased out? I believe that the preferred solution will be to plug into the grid, not the ephemeral solar power and windmills, but the cold hard natural gas, coal, fossil fuels and nuclear.

...

U.S. utility-scale electricity generation by source, amount, and share of total in 2022¹
Data as of October 2023

...

So, world wide you are asking that 1,475,000,000 cars be converted to electric power, that would be billions all over the world just because we will opt for the least acceptable solution.

...

Although daunting, none of these situations are insurmountable if we allow ourselves to take a step back and redefine the problem in a global context where boundaries serve only to limit the scope of the solutions, we can all bring to the table.

...

The primary problem that is being addressed by the climate change action is relatively simple, we must lower the carbon level that has slowly crept into our atmosphere from all the oft discussed sources. While carbon has been singled out as the benchmark, we are also very aware of a host of other substances that have been earmarked and typecast as villains in more regional or specific cases. From methane to sulfur-based contaminants, all must be addressed and every solution must pass through a battery of keen scrutiny exempt from monetary or national considerations. Existing contaminants must be either eliminated or mitigated by significantly less toxic alternatives, preserving, for the time being, the infrastructures erected to provide economical solutions to key necessities such as transportation, energy generation and production and conservation of food and water, health and reproductive avenues to sustain life, not just of the human race, but all life on the planet, from plants to animals and even microscopic entities that maintain life even unto the internal organs of the larger species.

...

A climate change collective is a community-based infrastructure that allows unrestricted access to new technologies, assuming the principle that the proposed solutions will meet the requirements of the group for the betterment of the group and society at large all the while enhancing the collective’s ability to affect climate change for the benefit of society and the material benefit of the group.

...

A digester is not necessarily aimed at dairy farms, it is useful wherever organic mass is produced that can be rendered into gases and solids. Its only function is to generate those gases in a useful manner and allow its capture for other uses. But among the barely tapped resources are waste water treatment plants, algae, rendering plants, dumps. But clearly every medium to large sized city has almost a duty to produce its own biofuel if only for their school buses, the latest targets of electrification and the natural feedstock that is already being tapped all over the world are the restaurants that produce tons of used vegetable oils (UCO) to produce a sizable revenue stream and a cheaper and cleaner diesel than the fossil fuel plants.

...

But it need not be a farm, a shipping concern works just as well, even an airport. Many years ago, I gave a conference in Lorient, France to an audience of fishermen and their business. It seems that they were already looking into fish residue and algae combinations to create biodiesel. Again, concern for the environment and mitigating the danger from fossil fuels by slowly replacing them with alternatives. Here it was less the air pollution as it was the actual sea.

Polluting rivers and ports harm the very existence of their business and replacing existing sources of poison is a major motivator. They have pretty much banned two strokes on the internal waterways. Next up the larger sectors of diesel powered commercial and pleasure craft. The collective can step into the breach with biodiesel, not just for the large and small craft but also to clean up the infrastructure equipment. Forcing trucks sitting at idle to switch to higher biofuels blend when in the port area where so much sitting and belching takes place. The port of Oakland took the particulate content down from 261 tons to 77 tons from 2005 to 2012 by enacting clean air mandates around the Port. The big win was in dropping the sulfur content in the fuel. Asthma dropped significantly too. And yet, oft attempted and never implemented there were several serious projects created around the San Francisco Bay ports.

...

To start with, we have no idea what removing 3.5 million cars and trucks from the transportation pool will look like, and to do it between 2030 and 2050 is insanity. Amazingly there is absolutely no backup plan to ensure transportation, heating, and other niceties on which we all depend, the grand plan is to eliminate ALL fossil fuels, terminate ALL internal combustion engines, provide ALL forms of heating and cooking from the grid. That very same grid that is so fragile that 200 people died in Texas from the cold during just one climate induced winter storm. It is no surprise that when Putin decided to invade his neighbor the first targets of his attacks were powerplants and electricity infrastructures. That very effectively pushed the country into survival mode.

Now just imagine that very same scenario with every form of transportation locked into the power grid and because the production of fossil fuels was interrupted by order in 2030 and there were no more diesel engines to run goods and services, transport them by truck, train, plane or boat because since all those would be powered by electrical devices.

...

As a matter of fact, instead of going hell for leather on nothing but solar and wind, we should adopt some of the cleaner diesel blends as a transition between the urban plug and play and the rest of the country with its multiple needs, like tractors, milking machines and such. Now imagine if instead of covering the arable land with solar panels we tilled and planted the creage to produce three harvests of Camelina Sativa, an oil bearing seed that works wonders in biodiesel production? (This plant is also a very healthy fodder for cattle and silage can be converted to bedding.bedding. )

But it is in the collectives such as farming communities where this type of solution can be developed. It is in the fields that grow the feedstocks, rural, local and essential to the survival of the farm that the essential farmlands can capture and return the diesel to what has always been the diesel fuel’s rightful place.

If the objective of electrification is to eliminate climate change, and as Stern pointed out, the easiest way to do that is to cut carbon emissions enough to allow the planet to breathe once again. The EPA has run evaluations of the carbon reduction by just using blends of as little as 20% biodiesel in ULSD. Unburned hydrocarbons drop 20%, Carbon monoxide drops 12%, particulate matters drop 12%. Of course, if we really ramped up the production of biodiesel so we could offer 100% pure bio in every tank, unburned hydrocarbons would drop 67%, CO 48%, NOX 10%. And we have only scratched the surface of what is possible. Algae, that scum on the ponds have only now started to become an option because of a remarkable study done in France by ADEME and a couple of truly groundbreaking corporations who penned the Livre Turquoise, a study of all projects and research done in France on algal conversion, surely a solid companion to Stern’s economics of climate change:

None of the technology is new, none of it requires massive restructuring of infrastructure and most of them are renewable, local and relatively easy to produce the engines and the modules required to transition into a cleaner and safer world.

...

“Securing broad-based and sustained co-operation requires an equitable distribution of effort across both developed and developing countries. There is no single formula that captures all dimensions of equity, but calculations based on income, historic responsibility and per capita emissions all point to rich countries taking responsibility for emissions reductions of 60-80% from 1990 levels by 2050.” P.XXII Stern Review

As a matter of fact, it is becoming clear that the responsibility for getting a grasp on the collective will be placed squarely in the hands of those who can best afford it and that mitigating the damage will burden those who can least afford it. The talk about converting to an all-electric energy solution is gibberish at the end of a long single lane road uniting two large cities in Africa. The dream of a charging station every 50 miles is ridiculous when the people in those areas barely have enough watts to keep lights on ten hours a day. The extension cords from the Upper Volta Dams barely make it to the capital Accra, and even then, sporadically let alone for the leisurely eight hours to charge a brand-new Tesla for a 300-mile run, let alone a fully loaded Bedford truck eighteen-wheeler to shift market critical foods from outlying farms to the center of town markets.

A small company in Finland, Ductor, will take the ammonia out of a dairy farm waste thereby creating usable fertilizer, and in removing the ammonia will enhance the production of clean biomethane for immediate consumption to generate electricity, or conversion of LNG or CNG under the RNG (Renewable Natural Gas). A cooperative venture might do well to call Finland to understand how far the technology has progressed, pilot plants are now fully operational commercial ventures and the fertilizer produced is added to the Collective for us and for sale.

The solution of course is the massive production of biofuels made on the spot, within walking distance of the source of feedstock, from waste products, to food waste and digesters and algae and whatever works to replace the tons of fossil fuels that keep those less fortunate alive and prospering in an increasingly uncaring world. But beyond that, we see with interest that the little being done here in the tier one economies, can be done massively in the third world so that basics such as heat, transportation and technologies can be used, although at a reduced rate, to better not just the animals at the top but all mankind.

If we look at funding for megaprojects like 3.000 cow dairies, not so uncommon as we think in various places around the world, then access to world markets for energy from these places would go a long way to alleviating the social ills of second and third world farms, and with them the countries where they can be built.

...

Sure, one percent of the rolling stock in the USA is electric powered and we observe with interest the massive PR campaign to install solar panels on every rooftop and in all the fields. But what you are actually seeing is a pollution transfer exercise rather than a true shift away from fossils. Even though the dream is clean energy from a non-existent tailpipe most of the energy going into those batteries are from the grid and what goes into the grid would make a sailor blush. READ MORE

Related articles

Electric grid woes foretell risk of blackouts: The nation’s electric grid is in trouble. (Politico's Power Switch)
Low-carbon shift raises risk of blackouts, grid execs warn: Snowballing policy and infrastructure issues pose a threat to electric reliability as a greener U.S. economy demands more power. (E&E News Energywire)
Electromobility in the Middle of the Tug-Of-War between Globalization and De-Fossilization (Transport Energy Strategies)
With energy demand surging, utilities fall back on their old standby: Fossil fuels (Grist)
What Tesla’s Troubles Signal for the E.V. Revolution -- The carmaker’s disappointing results point to slowing demand and a “sharp deterioration in growth” that extends beyond Elon Musk’s company. (New York Times)
‘Unprecedented’ electricity demand could drive up emissions — report: The EFI Foundation found utilities may rely on gas in the short term to ensure grid reliability, resulting in "potential conflicts" with emission reduction goals. (Politico Pro Energywire)
Utilities should rethink ‘panicked rush’ to build gas plants — study: Researchers say renewable energy, when paired with energy efficiency, will be able to meet growing electricity demand. (Politico Pro Energywire)
Managing Unprecedented Electricity Demand Growth on the Path to Net Zero Emissions (EFI Foundation)
Report Finds Fundamental Changes Needed to Scale Electric Vehicles in US (North America Clean Energy)
Tech giants fight plan to make them pay more for electric grid upgrades (Washington Post)
Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power: AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from E&E News Energywire: Without policies aimed at managing the transition from coal- and natural-gas-fueled power plants to renewable energy and advanced technology, the U.S. grid could reach a cliff’s edge of widespread blackout vulnerabilities before the end of this decade, leaders of four grid organizations said last week during an industry conference.

What keeps me up at night is the winter of 2032,” said Richard Dewey, CEO of the New York Independent System Operator, at the conference sponsored by the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA).

By that time, New York’s cushion of backup generation resources will be gone, he said, while power demand from the use of artificial intelligence, digital data centers, electrified vehicles and home heating will be mushrooming.

“I don’t know what fills that gap in the year 2032,” Dewey said. “It feels like that’s a long way away, but that’s like tomorrow,” he said — considering how long it takes to build new sources of electricity and transmission.

Dewey’s comments and those of other grid managers reflect cross-cutting tensions and realities. One is economic. The U.S. economy has rebounded since 2021. Government spending and tax incentives have generated private investment. Factories for green technology, electric cars, batteries and microchips — and energy policies aimed at deploying that technology — are changing the calculus around future electricity demand.

Moving from fossil fuels to wind and solar power, battery storage, and other advanced energy technology will require more high-voltage electric transmission. Those projects take years to build, and they require planning.

Poor planning and coordination have slowed development of clean energy projects, just as other sources of electricity generation — mainly coal — are being retired.

A push to close natural gas plants is also a pressure point: Gas is used for about 40 percent of U.S. electricity generation. Climate activists say new investments in gas extend the life of fossil fuels when they need to be phased out.

...

One risk scenario is during future winters, the grid’s most vulnerable period, van Welie said. Solar farms dominate the queue of proposed new generation projects needed to meet demand. Output plummets under gray skies and snow, grid officials point out.

Meanwhile, coal- and gas-fired generation continues to retire faster than new generation arrives to take its place, according to the long-term analysis by North American Electric Reliability (NERC), the grid monitor.

...

Multiple analyses agree that the amount of interregional transmission capacity would have to double or triple by 2035 to move much greater volumes of wind and solar power to customers while also meeting higher demands from an electrifying economy.

...

New high-voltage power lines take five years to plan and build on average and a lot of the new power demand from factories, data centers, and oil and gas development is coming faster than that, Vegas (Pablo Vegas, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, grid operator for most of that state) said. “The big question is, OK, if we’re going to add 25 gigawatts [of demand] over the next five years, what’s going to serve it?”

...

“We are not on target to achieve a noncarbon grid in 11 years,” said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association. “It’s just the truth. Recognizing that we are not on track is the first step.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico Pro Energywire: The country's electricity demand will skyrocket in the next few years, jeopardizing efforts to transition to a carbon-free grid, according to a new report from the EFI Foundation.

The report — released Monday and sponsored by energy companies — is based on a workshop with nearly 30 utility officials, systems operators, industry experts, and former policymakers and regulators. It found that new natural gas plants may be necessary to meet growing demand and provide reliable power in the short term, which could "present potential conflicts to pursuing decarbonization goals."

"Among the technologies for addressing load growth today, it is particularly difficult to find ones that are readily available, reliable, and clean, with large capacity," the report said. "Participants observed that natural gas partially fills such a gap because of its reliability and affordability but does not provide the emissions reduction benefits of emerging clean energy technologies."

The nonprofit EFI Foundation is led by former Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Its report comes after a study last month found that utilities could likely meet growing demand with renewable electricity and energy efficiency gains, leaving newly built gas plants to become “stranded assets.” READ MORE

Excerpt from EFI Foundation: Load growth is likely to further accelerate. Data centers dominate the headlines today, but new manufacturing combined with electrification of transportation, space heating, and industry will place even greater strain on the grid in the coming decades. READ MORE