California Is Facing An Electricity Crisis. But It Has Also Mandated A Switchover To Electric Vehicles

Sustainability California Is Facing An Electricity Crisis. But It Has Also Mandated A Switchover To Electric Vehicles Nives Dolsak and Aseem Prakash Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. We write on environmental issues, climate politics and NGOs.

Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Sep 8, 2022, 12:58am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin TOPSHOT – A driver charges his electric vehicle at a charging station as the California Independent . .

. [+] System Operator announced a statewide electricity Flex Alert urging conservation to avoid blackouts in Monterey Park, California on August 31, 2022. Californians were told August 31, 2022 not to charge their electric vehicles during peak hours, just days after the state said it would stop selling gas-powered cars, as the aging electricity grid struggles with a fearsome heatwave.

Temperatures as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) were forecast in some Los Angeles suburbs as a huge heat dome bakes a swathe of the western United States. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J.

BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images On August 25, California announced a ban on the sale of new gasoline vehicles by 2035 . On August 26, the state of Washington followed, and about 12 additional states are expected to announce similar mandates. Without doubt, the switchover to electric vehicles (EVs) is important for decarbonization because the transportation sector accounts for 27% of U.

S. greenhouse gas emissions. But for policy change to have political support, the switching costs should be low.

This is especially true for cars on which the modern society is dependent. Gasoline car owners drive up to gas stations anytime to fuel up. EV owners would probably expect the same: charge their cars at their convenience.

But can they? Apparently not. California’s EV announcement came at an unfortunate time because the state soon thereafter experienced a heatwave. This led to a surge in electricity demand, creating the possibility of widespread rolling blackouts.

The heatwave continues. For eight successive days , California’s independent grid operator ( Cal ISO ), the body that manages the transmission grid, has issued “ Flex Alerts ” asking households to voluntarily reduce power use, including not charging EVs between 4:00-9:00 pm. Officials are asking companies to switch production hours and use generators, which often work on diesel.

The Navy has not been spared either. At the San Diego Naval base, ships were disconnected from their port-based power connections and asked to sail out to sea. In normal times, Cal ISO’s request would not have generated controversy, especially because the Flex Alerts will probably end soon.

However, with the impending mid-term November elections and efforts by former President Trump to return to active politics, everything is controversial. This means that political optics are important especially for signature liberal issue such as EV s. MORE FOR YOU Is Carbon Capture Another Fossil Fuel Industry Con? Sustainable Fashion Wants Brands To Redefine Business Growth Trouble With Predicting Future Of Transportation Is That Today Gets In The Way California’s EV mandate followed by Flex Alerts raises a broader climate policy issue.

Should governments ensure an uninterrupted electricity supply before they mandate a switch to EVs? Poorly-executed climate plans could backfire and derail climate progress. Below we highlight two challenges to EV mandates: creating new transmission capacity and hesitancy about nuclear power (for charging stations, a third bottleneck in the EV rollout, see here ). Creating new transmission capacity Switching to EVs will help the climate only if electricity generation is decarbonized – otherwise, one has substituted increased coal/gas emissions from electricity generation for gasoline emissions from cars.

But zero emission generation is only half the story in the climate puzzle. The system must be able to move zero emission electricity from generation sites to consumption centers where most EV owners tend to be located. As of now, the US transmission system seems to lack this capacity.

About two-thirds of U. S. solar capacity and 99% of wind capacity is utility-scale, located outside big cities, the major consumption centers.

This is especially pronounced for wind because much of America’s wind potential is concentrated in a “wind belt” which runs from North Texas through the Dakotas and to the Canadian border. Thus, moving this electricity from generation sites to consumption centers requires creating a massive new transmission system. Princeton’s Net Zero America report notes that “to achieve a zero-carbon future by 2050, the existing high voltage transmission capacity will need to expand by approximately 60 percent by 2030 and triple compared to 2020 capacity through 2050 to connect wind and solar.

” Could this be done? Massive funds are required but this is probably less of an issue for the U. S. The key obstacle is probably political: local opposition to new high voltage transmission lines.

Maine voted down a transmission line that would bring hydroelectricity from Quebec to Massachusetts. After the Maine Supreme Court overturned the referendum , the case is back in the lower court. How might this opposition be addressed? Communities oppose transmission lines because they fear that lines and towers will disrupt the landscape and hurt property values.

In fact, some coastal communities are also opposing offshore wind turbines for similar reasons. Companies could address this opposition by, say, burying transmission lines, which raises transmission costs. The implication is that undergrounding transmission lines might become a political necessity, a payment for the “ social license” to construct new transmission lines.

And the higher costs should be factored in when policymakers make a case for decarbonization. Political opposition might also be diffused via permitting changes. One might ask: why is the US able to quickly build gas pipelines but not high voltage transmission lines? An important factor is that gas pipelines basically require an approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, while electricity lines need to be approved by federal, state, and local authorities.

Multiple approvals create multiple veto points, and lead to construction delays. Perhaps climate groups should start lobbying for the Senate Bill, the “ Streamlining Interstate Transmission of Electricity Act ” that seeks to streamline siting procedures for interstate transmission lines. Is nuclear power required to switch over to EVs? California wants to achieve net zero emissions in its electricity sector by 2045.

Until recently, California sought to achieve this without nuclear energy. In 2016, a nonprofit coalition of the Utility Reform Network, the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, and Friends of the Earth issued a report which suggested that electricity generated by California’s Diablo nuclear plant was not economical. For context, Diablo meets 9.

3% of the state’s electricity needs. Surprisingly, PG&E, the utility that owns Diablo, agreed and announced Diablo’s closure upon the expiry of its license in 2025. But in May 2022, California’s governor Newsom began making a case to keep Diablo open.

On September 1, the state legislature agreed to provide a loan of $1. 4 billion to PG&E to keep Diablo working until 2030. Why this confusion and last-minute policy decisions about nuclear energy? Did California policymakers not see the coming electricity crisis? Recall, the state had to institute rolling blackouts in 2020 , well before the EV mandate that will substantially increase electricity demand.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nuclear energy seems to be staging a comeback world over. Even Germany is contemplating extending the lives of its nuclear reactors, although in 2011 it had announced their closure. Nuclear energy provides 20% of America’s electricity and half of its clean energy .

U. S. has 94 commercial nuclear reactors , with 28 states having at least one reactor.

Unlike solar and wind, which generate electricity intermittently, nuclear provides constant (“ baseload ”) energy. Of course, one might argue that utility level centralized battery storage will allow wind and solar to supply electricity 24/7. Probably, but it seems that this technology is not yet price competitive.

And if the storage were to be decentralized or distributed, only high-income households will be able to afford it, leading to new sorts of inequities. If uninterrupted electricity is essential for a smooth transition to EVs, the US should seriously evaluate building up nuclear capacity, or at least extending the life of existing nuclear reactors after appropriate permitting by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The federal government has established a $6 billion program to help “avoid premature retirements of nuclear reactors across the country.

” Bill Gates ’ Terra Power is working on a new Natrium design which can reduce the costs of nuclear energy. These sorts of initiatives could be scaled up. In a Baptist-Bootlegger alliance, climate groups could even team up with the nuclear industry in this regard.

In sum, the electrification of the automobile sector is an important step to addressing the climate challenge. However, policymakers should issue EV mandates only after figuring out how to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply. California’s numerous Flex Alerts remind us that policy initiatives, such as permitting reforms and supporting nuclear energy, both historically unpopular with climate groups, might be required to relieve supply bottlenecks in generation and transmission.

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