Rural America has been falling behind urban America for decades, in terms of economic productivity and population growth. The worsening divide has manifested in cultural and political disruption nationwide. What role can climate policy play to help repair the inequity and hollowing out of our rural places?
My colleague Dan Farber describes the stark situation in Legal Planet:
According to Brookings researchers, the 53 largest metros account for over 95% of the nation’s population growth and 73% of the employment gains since 2010. Rural areas—those with no metros over 250,000 –are losing population and account for a declining share of the national economy. In other words, Brooking says, “9 percent of the population lives in smaller metros that are stagnant or slipping as a group and another 14 percent in rural places that are almost all declining.” It’s not hard to see why people are unhappy.
He then cites some of the ways that climate and environmental policy could help. First, rural areas will be disproportionately affected by a changing climate, particularly to agriculture. So they may be amenable to policies that address these impacts. Second, while they are not as affected by air pollution, drinking water contamination is a factor. So policies that bolster safe drinking water could be winners.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, clean energy policies could usher in a “Green New Deal” for rural America that boosts local jobs and economic development. That means jobs installing, constructing and managing renewable energy facilities, both small- and large-scale, plus related energy storage facilities. Energy retrofits of existing buildings can boost local contractor opportunities. Zero-emission vehicle technologies like battery electrics mean people can fuel their vehicles with local clean electricity instead of with the global commodity of oil. Those oil and gas purchases otherwise enrich far-off corporations and nations, representing a failure to circulate and invest that money locally. Natural and working landscapes in rural areas could also potentially receive carbon offset funding to be preserved as carbon sinks.
It would be a winning climate recipe that could also have the benefit of addressing the extreme inequality in the country. The politics, economy and global climate could all come out ahead with a Green New Deal.
Some heartening recent progress on the EV front, first on consumer demand and automaker supply and second on fast-charging technology:
- Tesla reported Model 3 third quarter sales of 56,000. They averaged production of 4,300 Model 3s a week, and in the final week of the quarter the company produced 5,300. Perhaps more significantly, the Model 3 had the highest revenue of any car model in the United States, beating out the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord, which ranked it fifth among all car models sold.
- Major battery maker LG Chem just announced an investment in Enevate, a company that is developing a lithium-ion battery charging technology that could allow EVs to charge at close to the speed of filling up a gas tank. Batteries can get up to 75 percent of their full capacity in just five minutes. With a 200+ mile battery, that means drivers can get 150 miles range in a few minutes.
With lots of gloomy environmental policy news out there, it’s nice to see progress continuing on this crucial clean technology.
People who don’t like infill development cite electric vehicles as an excuse to continue to sprawl. People who don’t like cars like to point out the environmental limitations of electric vehicles.
And so we have a simmering tension, recently manifested in Alissa Walker’s otherwise engaging Curbed piece “When Electric Isn’t Good Enough” on the need to reduce vehicle miles traveled and reliance on single-occupancy vehicles — even if they’re electrically powered.
Reducing driving and building more walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly neighborhoods are obviously imperatives. Environmentally, we need the reduced emissions and more compact buildings that use less energy and water. Health-wise we need the exercise and social interaction. And economically, we need the savings on housing, transportation and utility bills. Walker’s piece helps makes that case.
But electric vehicles are still a crucial technology. Driving will continue regardless of development patterns, and we must decarbonize it. We should think of it as a “loading order” (to borrow an energy phrase for prioritizing efficiency over new electricity generation): first we try to reduce driving miles, then we decarbonize all remaining driving. Walker’s article is helpful in emphasizing the need for action on the first priority.
But missing from the article is mention of the crucial co-benefits of vehicle electrification. The battery revolution propelled by EV purchases means cheap energy storage to balance intermittent renewables like solar and wind power on our grid, which helps to decarbonize our electricity sector. Cheap batteries also mean we can now have battery-powered transit buses, not to mention e-bikes and e-scooters — some of the emission-reducing technologies hailed in Walker’s piece.
Overall, the article is a helpful reminder that we need to build better neighborhoods and encourage efficient modes of transportation. But we shouldn’t downplay the significance of electric vehicles as a crucial clean technology. In short, EVs are a necessary — but not sufficient — climate-fighting technology.
It may not be the snazziest-looking electric vehicle ever made, but the now-discontinued Chevy Spark EV could pack a punch. As E&E News related in their recent piece on Palo Alto EVs [pay-walled]:
[Ben Kaupp, sales manager of Boardwalk Chevrolet in Palo Alto] owns a dozen cars and loves speed. One of the fastest he’s ever had is the Chevy Spark, a wedge-shaped little electric hatchback that, “before they figured out that they really shouldn’t give them that much power,” could out-accelerate the 600-horsepower Corvette Z06, one of the fastest production cars GM has ever made.
Pretty impressive for a car that looks like the stunted child of a Fiat and a shopping cart. But like other unfortunate-looking early EVs (the Nissan LEAF being another), the electric drive performance is superb.
Of all the EV automakers, only Tesla figured out early that the vehicles needed to be sold based on performance and technology. With just a bit more styling, a car like the Chevy Spark EV could have been a contender.
As governments around the world seek to encourage more adoption of zero-emission vehicles like EVs, their leaders often need help determining the most effective policies to encourage demand and lower costs. And now we have some analysis of the efficacy of various approaches.
The National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) has developed, along with Cadmus, a tool for states and localities to assess EV policies and offer regulations that encourage effective growth of both EV charging infrastructure and adoption. Utility Dive reported on the most effective policy:
By far, the rubric assigns the highest weight to vehicle purchase incentives, which could include grants, rebates or tax credits, along with exemptions from sales tax, registration and licensing fees.
Infrastructure is important, too, but not as much as consumer financial incentives. And surprisingly, fleet purchases and other demonstrations aren’t as effective as simply communicating some of the basics around EVs to a population largely unaware of EV technology and its benefits.
Incentives alone are probably not enough to encourage widespread deployment, but if a policy maker had to choose just one…
In my Berkeley Law research on electric vehicles (such as our recent 100% Zero report), I’ve heard repeatedly from EV experts that auto dealer unwillingness to sell and market the vehicles is a significant barrier to deployment.
And the numbers suggest why that might be the case. As E&E News reported [pay-walled] in a recent article on Palo Alto EVs:
The average dealer in the U.S. grossed about $1.75 million in profits last year from selling new cars, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. Those profits are generally declining. That same dealer made about $3.3 million on service and parts, a figure that has been rising. In other words, dealers are making less and less money selling cars, and more and more from maintaining them.
So why should car dealers have any incentive to promote electric vehicles to customers, when they have essentially no maintenance needs and few parts to replace? As one dealer described in the article, EVs require about as much care as a toaster. Dealers have otherwise grown accustomed to generous returns from maintenance contracts on repair-intensive internal combustion engine vehicles.
The cost data described above help explain why an EV-focused company like Tesla foregoes the traditional dealer model in favor of direct sales. Until we solve the dealer problem, it’s likely to remain a bottleneck in getting this critical zero-emission technology out to the general public.
As the saying goes, the future is already here, it’s just not widely distributed yet. And when it comes to electric vehicle adoption, infrastructure, and consumer awareness, Palo Alto takes the cake.
As E&E News reported [pay-walled]:
In this city of 67,000, one of the wealthiest in wealthy Silicon Valley, 30 percent of all new cars purchased last year were electric vehicles, according to data from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). That’s the highest adoption rate in California, which is home to half of the nation’s EVs. Per capita, Palo Alto is America’s electric car capital.
The affluent community is the home of Stanford and birthplace and bedroom of many major tech companies. Partly as a result of its tech-savvy nature and solidarity with local tech entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, its residents are all in on EVs.
Notably, the city has a tremendous build-out of chargers, particularly at workplaces. Many of the major tech companies have hundreds if not thousands of chargepoints on their campuses.
While not every city in America has the wealth to purchase these sometimes-expensive vehicles and to install all those chargers, as prices continue their steep decline for both infrastructure and vehicles, more of the world will start to look like Palo Alto — at least in terms of its zero-emission vehicle deployment.
I’ll discuss other aspects of EV deployment from this E&E article in two subsequent blog posts.
The HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) in Hamburg, Germany, features an automated handling facility using low and zero-emission equipment, similar to the Port of Long Beach. This video shows the cutting-edge technology and attendant environmental benefits:
It’s easy to see why labor groups fear the automation technology, as no workers are now needed in this facility. And it also points to the continued need to deploy zero-emission trucks, as once the cargo leaves the facility, it’s still carried by dirty trucks polluting nearby neighborhoods.
The critics are out for California’s groundbreaking climate and energy goals. Cal Matters (and former Sacramento Bee) columnist Dan Walters criticizes the state’s new 100% renewable energy and carbon neutrality goals by 2045:
It’s theoretically possible to build enough solar and windmill farms to [achieve a 100% greenhouse gas-free grid], albeit at immense cost, but there’s a corollary problem. They mostly generate during daylight hours, so having their power available 24 hours a day would require huge amounts of storage, presumably in massive battery banks.
Battery technology hasn’t advanced to that stage yet, at least at a viable cost. After Brown signed the 2045 legislation, Moody’s, the big credit rating organization, called it a “credit negative” for the state’s electrical utilities, citing battery storage capacity.
Walters fails to acknowledge here that “energy storage” to capture surplus renewables includes a diverse array of technologies beyond just batteries. Furthermore, with the carbon-free target date of 2045 still a generation away, industry has plenty of time to innovate in response to this challenge. We’ve already seen battery prices decline about 80% in 10 years. So why use today’s numbers to criticize a critical long-term mandate?
Walters then attacks California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) goals:
There are only about 200,000 ZEVs on the road now, so replacing all gasoline- and diesel-fueled cars at $30,000 each by 2045 would cost California motorists (and/or taxpayers) about a trillion dollars, or an average of $37 billion a year.
Again, Walters refuses to assume any cost decreases in the price of ZEVs by 2045, or the availability of inexpensive used vehicles in the meantime. This flies in the face of price trends to date. Walters also neglects to mention the fuel and maintenance savings from these vehicles.
Finally, he criticizes the push for electrification of transportation based on how much more power the state will need to deliver:
Driving 100 miles in a ZEV consumes 30 kilowatt-hours of electric power, according to the federal government. Therefore, assuming they were still traveling 330 billion miles each year, recharging 30 million ZEVs would expand annual electric power consumption from 300 terawatt-hours to at least 400, and that extra juice also would have to come from solar, wind and other renewable resources.
Moreover, since the ZEVs would be mostly recharged at night, the carbon-free electrical grid would need even more battery storage to keep them running.
Fun numbers, indeed.
Walters omits some key details. First, the state also has a goal of increasing energy efficiency, including a doubling of efficiency in existing buildings by 2030, which would reduce energy demand overall. Second, state leaders are trying to reduce driving miles per capita by investing in more transit, walking and biking infrastructure, while attempting to build more homes close to jobs and transit. If successful by 2045, driving miles would decrease, along with projected energy demand. Finally, state regulators are pushing for electricity rates that will encourage more daytime charging, to avoid the problem Walters cites.
Overall, Walters’ entire analysis fails to factor in the cost of inaction. What about the public health impacts of more pollution? What about the cost of addressing climate impacts, such as more fires, sea level rise, and droughts?
Walters raises some legitimate questions, but his analysis in response is selective and incomplete.
While the U.S. government retreats on this critical clean technology, China continues its ascent, per August sales figures [E&E News]:
Sales of pure-electric cars rose 31.7 percent from a year ago to 72,000 units. Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids jumped 130.8 percent to 28,000 vehicles.
Beijing is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar campaign to promote electric car development in hopes of creating a profitable new industry. Automakers are rolling out dozens of electrics but still rely on sales of gasoline-powered models for their profits.
In August, Nissan Motor Co. began production of its first electric sedan designed for China. The Sylphy Zero Emission, based on Nissan’s Leaf, is the first of dozens of lower-cost electrics being developed for China by General Motors, Volkswagen and other global automakers.
From a climate perspective, it’s a good thing that China is throwing its manufacturing muscle toward clean cars. It means cheap EVs will be abundant in our near future.
But from a U.S. economic competitiveness standpoint, it’s a major surrender. While California is continuing its leadership on electric vehicles, the future of transportation increasingly looks like it will mostly involve inexpensive Chinese models plying America’s roads.
