Facebook’s parent halved its trillion-dollar market cap plunging into the unproven metaverse of artificial reality, while boring gradualism succeeded for Apple investors. Similarly, the Inflation Reduction Act makes a trillion dollar downpayment on an unproven grid of 100% renewable energy sources, while a decade of China’s gradual growth of multiple energy sources doubled its GDP and electricity use, now twice U.S. consumption.
A second shock is EPA cutting tailpipe emissions limits to force adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) to replace autos with internal combustion (IC) engines.
EVs cost more than IC vehicles because the large, 60 kWh, half-ton batteries use technical metals in short supply, requiring much more, new mining. it’s unlikely industry can meet EPA’s 2030 goal that half of auto sales be EVs.
Consider gradualism instead of jumping to a fleet of 100% emission-free EVs. Plug-in hybrid autos use a quarter of the production-constraining battery materials of EVs. A typical plug-in can travel 44 miles on electricity before burning gasoline at 50 miles per gallon. Estimated emissions savings of 5,000 pounds per year are two-thirds those of a fully electric EV, but the auto industry can make four times as many vehicles with the same, limited battery materials.
Courting consumers can be more effective than mandating manufacturers. Plug-ins can meet the needs of commuters and shoppers, without range anxiety. Today’s EV drivers typically own an IC vehicle, which they drive more, avoiding the anxiety of finding a working charging station. A plug-in owner may not want a second, IC auto at all. Driving with home-priced electricity is cheaper than driving with gasoline. Plug-ins can be gradually charged overnight from a 120 VAC socket. The U.S. would not have to install a half million fast charging stations that add costs to electricity. As neighborhoods adopt plug-ins, utilities can gradually upgrade distribution transformers and lines, and eventually transmission and power generation services.
EVs and plug-ins don’t help cut CO2 emissions unless they are chareged with clean-sourced electricity. Today most U.S. electricity comes from burning natural gas (40%) and coal (20%), so EVs and plug-ins do cause CO2 emissions unless supplied by sources such as nuclear (18%), wind (10%), hydro (6%), or solar (3%).
Replacing fossil fuel burning with wind and solar on a grand scale is truely the unproven U.S. energy metaverse. It would require mining and refining impossibly more materials for even more, utility-scale batteries to compensate for weather dependent wind and solar sources, or betting on forthcoming hydrogen electrolyzers and hydrogen storage with round-trip energy efficiency under 40%.
This energy metaverse would also require torrents of new electric power transmission flowing sporatically from distant deserts, plains, and shores to industrial and population centers. The U.S. builds 1,700 miles of electric transmission lines per year, but employing wind and solar power sources would require doubling today’s 240,000 miles. Instead we can use existing transmission lines from existing fossil fuel power plants as we gradually replace them with nuclear power plants at the same sites. This alone would eliminate CO2 emissions from generating electricity, about a third of U.S. emissions. Gradually replacing all U.S. power sources except existing nuclear and hydro would require adding nearly 400 GW of nuclear power plants over a few decades, costing under one trillion dollars using GE-Hitachi estimates.
Changing future industrial processes to use electricity instead of coal, gas, and oil will require even more electric power. Uprating nuclear power plants to make more power has been successful, and many permitted sites can accommodate additional power plants. Uprating transmission lines within existing corridors is also feasible, with line voltage upgrades, advanced conductors, and gas-insulated substations.
Energy gradualism can economically cut U.S. emissions faster than plunging into the unproven 100% renewables metaverse.