I began working on climate change law and policy on January 20, 2009, the day I joined Berkeley Law, which was coincidentally Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day. So it’s been a full decade for me focusing exclusively on this subject (I focused on related land use and transit issues prior to 2009), roughly coinciding with the 2010s now coming to a close.
As we mark the end of this decade, two things stand out: remarkable progress reducing the price and deploying critical clean technologies, and dispiriting failure to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, with more severe climate impacts happening each year.
I noted some of these trends in a foreword to “Climate Change Law in the Asia Pacific” from Berkeley Law, which features articles from scholars in places like Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, as well as California.
To summarize the good news on clean technology:
- From 2009 to 2017, the levelized costs for utility-scale solar photovoltaic dropped 86 percent;
- Wind power levelized costs dropped 67 percent from 2009-2017; and
- Lithium ion battery prices (central to electric vehicles and grid energy storage) have dropped 85 percent from 2010 to 2018.
This progress is the key reason for optimism on climate change. With the price decreases, support for deployment has increased across the political spectrum and allowed for some remarkable success stories on emissions reductions, such as California’s ability to achieve its 2020 carbon goals four years earlier, due primarily to renewable energy deployment.
But despite the progress, we have this sobering data:
- Carbon parts per million have increased from 385 in 2009 to 411 (and counting).
And unsurprisingly, the bill is now coming due. This decade has brought some of the predicted severe climate impacts, such as unprecedented wildfires, droughts, extreme rain events and hurricanes, and warming oceans.
On the positive side, the extreme weather has helped shift public opinion in favor of climate action. But it’s come at a significant cost to human life, happiness, and ecosystems.
Hopefully in the 2020s we’ll see the widespread deployment of clean technologies and other climate-smart practices that we need to stabilize and reduce emissions. And while climate impacts will inevitably worsen, perhaps our ability to withstand them will improve, such as through electricity grid resilience in the face of wildfires and using natural infrastructure to lessen storm surges and flooding.
And to make any of these positives happen, we will need smart policies and public support and political leaders to enact them. I’ve had the good fortune to work on climate policy now for over a decade, and as the 2020s dawn, much work remains.
UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) is today releasing a new report on lessons learned to advance electric vehicle (EV) deployment in France and California. Electric Vehicles and Global Urban Adoption: Policy Solutions from France and California is based on a June 2019 international conference at UC Berkeley, co-sponsored by CentraleSupélec and Florence School of Regulation (FSR) in France, featuring speakers from California and French utilities, energy regulators and industry.
Electric vehicles are important to both California and France because transportation accounts for approximately 20 percent of emissions in Europe, 30 percent in the United States, and 40 percent in California (and even more when factoring in emissions from oil refineries). Yet electric vehicles still represent a small share of the overall vehicle market worldwide, at under 10 percent of new car sales in California and under 2 percent in France, despite aggressive policy targets.
Deployment in California and France is more perhaps more complicated than other jurisdictions, given that approximately 40 percent of residents in both places live in multi-unit dwellings, such as apartments, townhouses, and condominiums. Many of these dwellings are in urban areas with little or no access to charging, given the lack of dedicated parking spots and lower vehicle ownership rates. French law requires builders of new apartment buildings to install chargers, but residents of existing buildings don’t receive those benefits.
As leaders in California and France seek to boost EV adoption, speakers at the conference identified the following challenges, also summarized in the report:
- Lack of access to affordable, convenient private electric vehicles;
- Complexity and cost of installing charging in urban settings and existing multifamily buildings;
- Declining federal incentives and insufficient vehicle demand;
- Electricity rate design decreases the financial viability of charging stations;
- Difficulty of adopting optimal charging practices that could benefit users and electric utilities;
- Difficulty of adopting optimal charging practices that could benefit users and electric utilities; and
- Need for grid infrastructure upgrades to avoid high costs on first-movers.
The conference speakers also discussed priority solutions, as the report details, including:
- National and state governments could require owners of existing multifamily buildings to install charging stations;
- National and state governments could assist transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft in encouraging electric vehicle adoption among their drivers, through support for the deployment of fast-charging hubs, driver education programs, and new pilot projects; and
- Electric utilities and regulators could develop new rate designs to incentivize charging while optimizing grid efficiency.
These and other solutions are discussed in the report, which will hopefully help stakeholders in both jurisdictions achieve an electric future for transportation. Bonne route!
On this morning’s 10am edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss electric vehicles (EVs), a critical clean technology for addressing climate change — but one that has yet to see mass adoption.
What progress is being made on EVs? What challenges remain? What can be done for people who don’t have a dedicated parking spot for charging access? How clean and sustainable is the battery supply chain and disposal process?
Joining me to discuss these questions and more will be:
- David Reichmuth, senior engineer in the Clean Vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Reichmuth has testified at hearings before the US House of Representatives, the California State Legislature, and the California Air Resources Board, and he is an expert on California’s Zero Emission Vehicles regulation.
- Max Baumhefner, Senior Attorney with the Climate and Clean Energy Program at NRDC, based in San Francisco. He focuses on electrifying the transportation sector in a manner that also accelerates the transition to a smarter, more affordable electric grid powered by renewable resources.
You can stream it live at 10am today or listen to 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. Call 866-798-TALK with questions or comments!
One of the great things about electric vehicles is that their simple design (battery+motor, with no engine or transmission) means very little maintenance costs, as well as potentially very cheap models in the years to come, as battery prices (the main cost element of the vehicles) continue to decrease over time.
But that simpler construction also means the auto industry will undergo significant changes, resulting in many jobs eliminated. To be sure, new jobs in battery manufacturing, repair, reuse and recycling will be created, along with electronics manufacturing and infrastructure deployment (to offset gas station jobs losses). But the phase out of engines will be significant. As E&E News reported [paywall]:
There is no hiding from the dark clouds on the horizon of U.S. automobile engine and drive assembly parts manufacturers. They number more than 1,100 firms with 130,000 employees and $8 billion in annual payrolls. The greatest concentration of them are in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, Rust Belt states where industrial manufacturers, their workers, and the workers’ communities have been repeatedly pounded by “creative destruction.”
To put a finer point on these numbers, the article describes how internal combustion engines require 107 forgings to manufacture, while a Tesla Model S or a Nissan LEAF without any engine at all requires just 7 or 8 forgings. So adios to most forging jobs.
To be sure, these job transitions are no reason to pump the brakes (ahem) on policies to encourage electric vehicle deployment. As mentioned, EVs will help create many new jobs, and consumers will spend their savings on maintenance on other industries, using the newly available cash to purchase other things and create new jobs. So on balance, EVs should be a net positive for the economy (not to mention a slam dunk on the environment and public health).
But policy makers will need to consider options to minimize these job losses and work with affected employees on retraining programs. They will also need to think through the impact of these job transitions on our country’s electoral politics. We want to avoid what we’ve seen with the electricity sector, with “coal state” politics in the U.S. Senate and presidential races slowing the transition to renewable energy.
I hope the transition to zero-emission vehicles happens soon enough that this becomes an urgent problem we have to tackle — and solve — quickly.
Most trucks on the road today are slow and smelly, causing a majority of the harmful air pollution in urban skies and contributing to our greenhouse gas emission problem. But technology is offering promising solutions to make these trucks zero emission — will they be fueled by battery electric power or hydrogen fuel cells?
Jim Park in Trucking Info lays out the situation with this competition over fuels and technology, and it seems to me that battery power is gaining rapidly. On the hydrogen side, we currently have three main trucking companies: Nikola, Kenworth/Toyota, and a Canadian consortium collaborating on AZETEC (Alberta Zero-Emissions Truck Electrification Collaboration). The battery electric truck side is led right now by Daimler and Tesla.
Hydrogen has two clear advantages over batteries: long-distance range (500-800 miles) with a light payload for the fuel and fuel cell, weighing no more than a typical diesel sleeper tractor. These trucks can also refuel quickly.
But batteries are getting cheaper and more powerful. Electric trucks generally benefit from stop-and-go operations with more opportunities for regenerative braking and high-powered charging. Companies like Daimler are responding to this large part of the market:
“We found that probably 80% of the group we spoke to were not running more than 150 miles per day,” says Andreas Juretzka, head of Daimler’s e-Mobility Group. “That led us to a battery spec of 230-mile range, which covers, among other things, the swings in ambient temperature that can affect battery performance and to alleviate the customers’ range anxiety.”
Tesla has meanwhile announced a 500-mile range truck with zero-to-60 times of less than 5 seconds — sure to be of interest for driving quality alone.
Both types of zero-emission trucks will require a whole new build-out of charging infrastructure though, including fast-charger stations for batteries and hydrogen stations for fuel cells.
This competition over fueling technology is probably good news for consumers and all who live near and drive behind these trucks. But at the same time some clarity on which technologies are suitable for which applications will be needed soon, as policy makers are right now contemplating public investments in the various fueling infrastructure needs. They don’t want to invest in permanent infrastructure for the wrong type of vehicle.
My guess? Battery electrics will dominate for 80% of the trucking market, but hydrogen will still be useful for longer-distance trucking. But either way, the benefits for air quality and our carbon footprint will be immense.
On the list of things that people may have to sacrifice to combat climate change and reduce their personal carbon footprint, flying is an unpopular sell for many. Indeed, it was at the root of much conservative criticism of the initial Green New Deal, with claims that the plan would lead to prohibitions on flying.
But aviation emissions are substantial: commercial flights currently constitute 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, per the International Council on Clean Transportation.
Fortunately, battery technology improvements may soon make flying a low-carbon activities, and even zero-emission depending on the electricity source. While electrification of passenger vehicles, scooters, bikes, and even trucks is rapidly progressing, electric airplanes are admittedly still in their infancy. Most have short ranges (under 80 miles), but they boast the same advantages of other electrified transport: fast acceleration, quiet flights, and dramatic fuel savings, given that electricity is cheaper than petroleum fuel.
Yet new companies are boasting substantial improvements to come. For example, as E&E News reported recently [paywalled], Israeli startup Eviation Aircraft announced that “Alice,” its first all-electric plane, will take flight in 2022. The planes can carry nine passengers up to 650 miles, albeit at a hefty price tag. And hybrid options may be available even sooner.
If the trajectory of e-planes follows other transport technologies, we should have cheaper, longer-range electric planes available in the coming decades for the bulk of flights. To be sure, we still should find ways to reduce the need to travel and build out a high speed rail network, particularly to replace expensive and polluting short-haul flights. Low-carbon biofuels can also be an interim solution.
But in the long run, technology improvements with e-planes could provide an important low-carbon option to allow people (who can afford it) the ability to keep flying to destinations, without the same risk of damaging the climate. To win over critics and more political support for climate action, we’ll certainly need this option to take off.
Good news on California’s efforts to fight climate change: in-state emissions in 2017 (the latest available data) were down over 2016 and ahead of the state’s mandatory 2020 goals. The California Air Resources Board announced the progress yesterday, with this chart showing emissions in context of population and GDP:
Overall, emissions totaled 424 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2017, down 5 million metric tons from 2016. For reference, the 2020 reduction target is 431 million metric tons.
Most of the progress came from the electricity sector, where for the first time renewable sources made up a larger percentage of the generation than fossil fuels.
However, transportation emissions increased 0.7% in 2017, compared to a 2% increase in 2016, mostly from passenger vehicles. That total is even worse when you consider pollution from oil and gas refineries that make the fuel for these passenger vehicles. Together with hydrogen production, these sources constituted one-third of the state’s total industrial pollution.
Here’s the latest pie chart on where the emissions came from in 2017:
While the story is overall positive for California’s climate efforts, the state will have to redouble its efforts to reduce driving miles by allowing more homes to be built near jobs and transit, while transitioning the remaining driving miles to zero-emission technologies like electric vehicles.
Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti made headlines recently by unveiling the city’s version of a “Green New Deal,” complete with ambitious goals to create a zero-emission transportation network, a zero-carbon electricity grid, and a Los Angeles that “won’t send a single piece of trash” to the landfill by 2050.
The goals in the new sustainability plan [PDF] are necessary to meet our environmental and sustainability needs, but how can the city make them feasible to achieve?
I discussed the zero-waste goal in particular on KPCC radio’s AirTalk program, along with my UCLA Law colleague Cara Horowitz. My comments were drawn largely from the 2016 CLEE report “Wasting Opportunities” on boosting energy recovery from municipal solid waste to meet climate goals.
The bottom line? Achieving zero waste will require significant reduction of materials in use, increases in recycling and composting, and — yes — some type of energy recovery from whatever is left over. You can listen to the broadcast here.
Policy makers and industry leaders have a tough challenge making electric vehicles accessible for the world’s urban residents. Apartment dwellers, for example, often lack access to dedicated spots with electricity to charge the vehicles, while other city residents may need access to shared EVs to get around city streets. Unless EV leaders can solve these challenges, global deployment of this vital clean technology will be limited.
To discuss these issues and solutions from around the globe, please join us on Tuesday, June 4th and Wednesday, June 5th, as Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) partners with the University of Paris for an international conference on urban EV deployment, with a focus on policies and perspectives from California and France.
“Electric Vehicles and Global Urban Adoption“ will feature top officials from the Newsom Administration and other electric vehicle industry experts, including:
- Jamie Hall, Manager of Public Policy, General Motors
- Dominique Lagarde, Director of Electric Mobility, Enedis (France’s largest Distribution System Operator)
- John McGinty, Senior Business Development Associate, Uber
- Patty Monahan, Commissioner, California Energy Commission
- Carla Peterman, Former Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission
- Debbie Raphael, Director of the Department of Environment, City of San Francisco
- Alice Reynolds, Senior Advisor for Energy, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom
In addition, the event will feature a pre-conference tour of the Tesla factory in Fremont, California (space is limited to early registrants) and a guided tour of an innovative, micro-grid ready EV charging facility in Downtown Berkeley.
Register on-line (admission is $20, which includes breakfast and lunch both days) and view the full agenda. The event will take place at the Bancroft Hotel, across from Berkeley Law. Nine hours of MCLE credit is available for attorneys. Hope to see you there!
Kyle Hyatt at RoadShow on Cnet.com helpfully lists all the fully battery-electric vehicles available for sale right now in the United States, for anyone on the market or interested in the industry’s progress toward electrification. I condensed his alphabetical list below to focus mostly on mileage range per charge and price, as those are among the most critical features for many car buyers:
- Audi E-Tron: An electric SUV with a 95 kilowatt-hour battery, it provides a maximum range of 204 miles with a starting price around $75,000.
- BMW i3: A boxy urban EV with a carbon-fiber chassis to reduce weight, it has a relatively short range of up to 153 miles with a price at $44,450.
- Chevrolet Bolt EV: An alternative to the Tesla Model 3 (see below), this is vehicle has a solid range at 238 miles at a starting price of $36,620.
- Fiat 500e: Just under $33,000, you only get a range of 84 miles.
- Honda Clarity Electric: A range of just 89 miles, with only leasing options available.
- Hyundai Ioniq Electric: This hatchback sedan has 124-mile range and is listed for just over $30,000.
- Hyundai Kona Electric: An exciting new crossover SUV with a range of 258 miles and a price starting at $36,950.
- Jaguar I-Pace: An alternative to the Tesla Model X (see below), it has received excellent reviews on performance. It has a range of 234 miles and is priced around $70,000.
- Kia Niro EV: Another exciting new battery-electric SUV with a range of 239 miles for $38,500 to start.
- Kia Soul EV+: A range of only 111 miles for $34,000 starting price, with a recommendation to wait for the upcoming 2020 model.
- Nissan Leaf: The “granddaddy” of EVs, it has a decent range at 150 miles for under $30,000.
- Nissan Leaf Plus: Range at 226 miles for about $33,000.
- Smart Vision EQ Fortwo: Not a massive seller in the U.S. (I hadn’t even heard of this car before), and the 2019 model year will be the company’s last in the U.S. and Canada, given low sales numbers. The range is just 58 miles for about $30,000 (ouch).
- Tesla Model 3: The long-range all-wheel drive model offers a 310-mile range for around $50,000 or so. The elusive $35,000 version offers a range closer to 200 miles.
- Tesla Model S: The Model S 100D can now achieve 370 miles on a single charge at about $88,000 in price. The cheaper “75” version has range in the mid-200 miles.
- Tesla Model X: The X 100D now offers 325 miles of range on a single charge, with prices well over $100,000. A cheaper “75” version with less range is available.
- Volkswagen e-Golf: Range at 119 miles, with a starting price of $31,895.
Overall, it’s a solid list of electric vehicles with some relatively affordable options and diverse models available. And with automakers planning to roll out even more models in the coming few years, this list should grow dramatically from here on out.
