EV charging company Voltpost‘s “first-of-a-kind” lamppost EV charger is now commercially available in major US metro areas.
The New York and San Francisco-based company is developing and deploying EV charging projects in US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, and others this spring.
Voltpost retrofits lampposts into a modular and upgradable Level 2 EV charging platform powered by a mobile app. The company says its platform provides EV drivers convenient and affordable charging while reducing installation costs, time, maintenance, and chargers’ footprint.
Voltpost can install a lamppost charger inexpensively in one to two hours without construction, trenching, or extensive permitting processes. The ease of installation helps bring more EV charging to underserved communities and high-density areas.
Last year, Voltpost participated in the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Studio program, a collaboration between the NYC DOT and Newlab. In its pilot, Voltpost installed chargers on lampposts at Newlab in Brooklyn and in a DOT parking lot. The chargers were installed in an hour, operated with a high uptime, and got positive feedback from EV drivers.
The lamppost EV chargers feature 20 feet of retractable cable and a charge plug with a pulsing light that routes the cable at a 90-degree angle to the car socket so the cable doesn’t become a hazard to pedestrians and traffic.
The system can accommodate either two or four charging ports. There’s a Voltpost mobile app so drivers can manage charging, and it also features a map of available and in-use Voltpost chargers. Users can make reservations, track charging, pay based on electricity consumed, and see stats on financial and environmental savings.
The lamppost EV chargers also have a Charge Station Management System that provides charging analytics for public and private stakeholders. Site hosts can set charger features, including pricing, and remotely monitor chargers.
Even zealots of the electric vehicle will tell you that public charging can be a fraught affair. If all goes well, and it often doesn’t, your charging session will likely entail sitting in a dark corner of a parking lot for upwards of an hour. You might have to stand in the rain or snow to operate the charger because most stations lack awnings. You might have to go hungry because many lack access to food. And, perhaps worst of all, your session may be made extra uncomfortable by a typical lack of restrooms.
But hopefully that’s changing. This year, Electrify America opened an indoor flagship location in San Francisco. Situated at 928 Harrison Street, this bank of 20 high-speed chargers is unique not only for its location—occupying some very expensive real estate—but also for its amenities. While charging, you can grab a drink from a vending machine, host a meeting from one of the lounges, and, yes, even use the bathroom.
Electrify America’s new flagship location in San Francisco. ELECTRIFY AMERICA
It’s a massive upgrade from what many EV early adopters have become accustomed to, but it’s just the beginning. With familiar roadside refuges such as Love’s Travel Stops and Buc-ee’s getting in on the game, the future is finally looking a bit brighter when it comes to electrification’s infrastructure.
Just as with buying a new house, the three most important factors in EV charging are location, location, and location. After all, the fastest, most reliable charger in the world is worthless if it isn’t where you need it. The good news? If you have off-street parking, you can likely put a charger in the best possible spot: your home. More than 90 percent of EV owners charge where they live. While slower than the high-speed units at public stations, at-home chargers more than make up for it in convenience.
The latter can typically bring an empty car to full in under ten hours, which is plenty of time for most folks to replenish their EV’s battery pack between returning from work and heading out again the next day. That potentially means a full charge every morning, so public installations take a back seat for many who use an EV as their daily commuter. That’s why we need far fewer of them than we do gas stations. However, whether road-tripping or just going for an extended Sunday cruise, most EV owners will still need to replenish their batteries in the wild at some point. And while location is still crucial, other factors are gaining significance.
The fastest, most reliable charger in the world is worthless if it isn’t where you need it. KENA BETANCUR/VIEW PRESS/GETTY IMAGES
Amaiya Khardenavis, an analyst of EV Charging Infrastructure at the energy-research firm Wood Mackenzie, says that there was a lot of “land grabbing” by the larger networks in the early days of EVs. That is, just throwing down chargers as close to major highways as possible with little regard for amenities. According to Khardenavis, today’s locations are more “customer-centric” than before. “The landscape in 2020 was dominated by only a few players in the market,” he says, “and these were all pure providers, like of course Tesla, but EVgo, Electrify America, ChargePoint, and that’s about it.”
Tesla gained an early advantage with its Supercharger network in 2012. Now, with more than 2,000 domestic locations, it’s the largest operator of fast chargers in the United States. But it wasn’t the first. ChargePoint is the nation’s largest network in general, launching back in 2007 and offering over 30,000 locations. Others weren’t far behind, including EVgo, which has about 3,000 chargers spread across 35 states.
“We’re addressing a lot of our legacy equipment . . . some of our chargers are getting close to a decade old,” says Katie Wallace, EVgo’s director of communications. Yet some newer players are helping to raise the bar. One of those is EV manufacturer Rivian, which launched its Adventure Network just 18 months ago and has since deployed 433 fast chargers across 71 locations. “We’re opening sites each week,” says Sara Eslinger, director of the program for Rivian.
The EVgo network comprises about 3,000 chargers across 35 states. JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
While the name “Adventure Network” infers that these chargers are at off-road trailheads, and indeed Rivian offers some of those, Eslinger says the company is still focused on serving major transportation corridors, while ensuring availability of amenities like 24-hour food services and restrooms, even going so far as to bring in their own lighting if necessary. As increased EV adoption pulls new investment from some familiar names, features like these are becoming the next battleground.
According to Khardenavis, “More retail stores, retail chains, and travel centers [are] entering the space—Walmart, Pilot, and Flying J, as well as Love’s, everyone is trying to be involved in this space to some extent.” Though many of these partnerships are still developing (Mercedes-Benz just announced a deal with Buc-ee’s in November, for example), the net result should be a significantly improved charging experience.
The CEO of Rivian, Robert Scaringe, talks about the automaker’s Adventure Network plan at a presentation last month. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Why are all these players getting into the market now? The money is starting to flow. In the beginning, running an EV-charging business was brutally complicated and expensive, and served only a small segment of early adopters. Today, utilization rates for public chargers are surging, and so is revenue.
“In our last earnings call, we reported that EVgo’s network throughout was growing five times faster than EVs in operation,” Wallace says. She adds that people are getting more comfortable driving their EVs, relying on chargers further afield.
Anthony Lambkin, vice president of operations at Electrify America, sees the same trend: “Some of our sites, especially in parts of California, are routinely over 50 percent utilization.” Lambkin refers to this as “massive growth,” and that it has driven the company to redesign some of its chargers, which were not up to surviving that intensity of use. Higher utilization means more money, and more money means more profits. But, as volume increases, so does the opportunity for other revenue streams.
Unlike these chargers in Oyster Bay, N.Y., an increasing number of future stations may have a retail-store component. ALEJANDRA VILLA LOARCA/NEWSDAY RM VIA GETTY IMAGES
“In today’s gas-station business model, over 60 percent of the revenue really comes from store purchases, not from fuel retail,” Khardenavis says. “The future of the EV-charging model will be some sort of co-located retail-store presence.” More chargers at nicer locations, though, means nothing if they’re constantly broken. “The bigger question is going to be how reliable are these chargers?” Khardenavis says. A 2022 study out of the University of California, Berkeley, found that roughly one out of four chargers evaluated in the Greater Bay Area was non-functional (Tesla stations were not included). More troublingly, when the researchers visited those sites a week later, nearly all of them were still not fixed.
Khardenavis says that such historically poor reliability is directly related to profitability: “I think with that kind of cash flow coming in . . . there is now an impetus to develop this model, which is more customer-centric than just earlier focusing on expanding to locations.”
More chargers at nicer locations means nothing if they’re constantly broken. JOHN TLUMACKI/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
In the world of public charging, there’s Tesla’s Supercharger network, and then there’s everybody else. Tesla’s network not only earned a reputation for being the most readily available and reliable, but using a single plug across every new Tesla model meant owners only had to show up, plug in, and wait while the electrons flowed.
Various plug standards have come and gone for other manufacturers, but that too is changing. Virtually every major manufacturer has agreed to use what’s being called the North American Charging Standard. It’s essentially the same plug that Tesla uses.
Soon EVs from Ford, Rivian, and plenty of others will not only use the same plug, but will be able to easily charge at Tesla’s Supercharger stations across the nation. That’s the good news. The bad news is that all the non-Teslas on the road today use a combination of different plugs, most featuring the Combined Charging System, or CCS. While Tesla is updating some of its Supercharger installations to support CCS, it’s going to be a slow transition. “We’re going to be in a land of adapters for a while, because the soonest that any non-Tesla OEM is going to come out with the NACS port is probably the fall of 2025,” says Wallace.
Soon other EVs will not only have the same plug as Tesla models, but will be able to use Tesla’s Supercharger stations across the nation. CELAL GUNES/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Rivian has updated its vehicles to show the location of all Superchargers on its integrated navigation, routing drivers appropriately depending on whether they have an adapter. Yet Khardenavis is concerned that this transition could slow down EV adoption further, with some buyers deciding to wait for the port transition to be completed before investing in a new EV. He fears that EVs with the “now-obsolete” CCS port could sit on dealership lots for longer.
Increased utilization raises the potential for long lines at chargers, but the process of building new stations entails dodging numerous roadblocks. One of those is working with local municipalities, which often aren’t used to moving at the pace of a startup. Electrify America’s Lambkin says that processes are improving, but it’s still a challenge. “Permitting is going much better for us now than it was five years ago because there are far more cities and towns and municipalities that are used to seeing this type of equipment,” Lambkin says. “Back in the day, it was like alien technology.”
The federal government is helping as well. The 2021 National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program provides funding to help cover planning, construction, and even maintenance of chargers. “Folks are going to see a lot more stations coming online in the next year and a half,” says Wallace, who attributes this to the various Department of Transportation outposts at the state level becoming “more comfortable and more familiar with how to implement the NEVI program.”
U.S. President Joe Biden gets a demonstration of an EV charging setup at the White House. JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Another issue is grid capacity. Khardenavis notes that, for a larger installation, it can take upwards of a year just for the necessary upgrades to power the site. “Project delays are a very common theme in the fast-charging space especially,” he says. But the charging companies are finding ways around this, too. According to Lambkin, Electrify America routinely uses on-site batteries to offset energy usage during peak times and has a so-called “mega pack” in Baker, Calif. “That’s actually to allow us to build that site well in advance of when the utility, SCE in this case, had the capacity to be able to serve the number of dispensers and the amount of power that we needed.”
And finally, there’s construction. It takes time to design a given charger layout, run the conduit, lay out the chargers themselves, and wait for all that concrete to cure. Even that process is changing. “We just deployed our very first station using prefabrication in Texas,” says EVgo’s Wallace. “It’s just a more efficient way to deploy because everything is assembled off-site, in an assembly facility, and then dropped into a skid-frame. So this construction timeline is much shorter.”
Tesla owners line up for an available charger in Utah. GEORGE FREY/GETTY IMAGES
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), current growth and demand for EVs will require 1.2 million U.S. public chargers by 2030. As to the current reality, Khardenavis notes that there are about 165,000 available today, and he’s skeptical about that 2030 target. “It’s almost ten-X growth, which is extremely challenging in today’s environment,” he says, adding that predicting the need for six years in the future is itself difficult given the unpredictability of consumer behavior. “I don’t see us reaching that number anytime in the next four- to five-year timeframe. But I think it’s a target that we need to have in mind before we deploy and make plans around making EV charging more ubiquitous.”
A couple wait on their EV to charge in Texas. SHELBY TAUBER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
But merely adding more chargers isn’t enough. It’ll take a better all-around charging experience to meet the needs of a new generation of luxury EV owners, such as drivers of the Mercedes-Benz EQS and the Rolls-Royce Spectre, for example. Meeting those standards will take more installations like Electrify America’s indoor flagship. “We’re really competing with the traditional fueling industry, and that’s been around for 100 years,” says Lambkin. “If you think about where we are today and where we’ve come in just five years, think about the levels of improvement that we can expect to see over the next five years.”
While that dingy charger in the back of the shopping-mall parking lot is still the norm for now, there’s work underway to make it the outlier. The real issue remains whether public adoption of EVs and the requisite infrastructure expansion will both maintain enough juice.
Around the time the first American “chemistry” association was established 150 years ago, a new age was born.
The plastics age.
It was born in large part by chemists, driven by their desire to help solve society’s challenges. And in small part by a story about elephants.
Billiard Balls For much of human history, everyday tools and products were made mostly from ivory, wood, metals, plant fibers, animal skins/hair/bone, and the like.
A familiar example: billiard balls.
For hundreds of years, ivory was the favored material for making the smooth, durable spheres. But by the mid-1800s, relying on elephants to meet demand for ivory – about eight balls per tusk – became unsustainable and dangerous. Society demanded substitutes.
In the late 1860s, an American chemist patented the partially synthetic material “celluloid,” made primarily from plant cellulose and camphor, that began replacing ivory in multiple applications. Including billiard balls.
This story – new polymeric materials with advanced properties replacing limited, existing materials – has been evolving ever since, largely written by chemists and engineers.
Chemists Rising As the first and second industrial revolutions created a huge demand for materials, chemists searched for new sources – plus innovative, new materials. In addition to cellulose, galalith and rayon (a modified cellulose) were born in the late 1800s.
Then in the early 1900s, Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland created the first entirely synthetic plastic – and it would revolutionize the way many products were made
“Bakelite’s” properties were suited for a much wider variety of uses than its predecessors. For example, it was resistant to heat and did not conduct electricity, so it was a really good insulator, making it particularly useful in the automotive and electrical industries emerging in the early 1900s.
After that, chemists really got cooking.
Cellophane, invented in 1912, took off in the 1920s after DuPont made it water resistant.
Vinyl was developed in the 1920s to replace expensive, difficult-to-source rubber in multiple applications.
Polyethylene was produced during the 1930s in fits and starts in the UK (it’s now the most widely used plastic).
Polyvinyl chloride was discovered in 1933 by accident by a Dow Chemical lab worker.
Polyurethanes were invented in the 1930s by Dr. Otto Bayer (soon a household name).
Nylon was unveiled in 1939 at the New York World’s fair (and largely eclipsed silk in clothing.)
These “modern” materials inexorably made inroads in our society and economy. They solved challenges large and small, from creating a more affordable, reliable synthetic “rubber” to making women’s stockings more wearable.
By the 1930s the term “plastic” had become part of our everyday language.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” The classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” depicts a dramatic inflection point in America’s reliance on plastics: World War II.
Before the war, George Bailey’s friend Sam Wainwright offers him a “chance of a lifetime” investing in plastics. “This is the biggest thing since radio, and I’m letting you in on the ground floor.”
George turns him down and tells his future wife Mary: “Now you listen to me! I don’t want any plastics! I don’t want any ground floors, and I don’t want to get married – ever – to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do. And you’re… and you’re…” And then they kiss.
But I digress.
Sam “made a fortune in plastic hoods for planes” during the war. Plastics also were used to make the housing for radar equipment (since plastics don’t impede radar waves). Plastics replaced rubber in airplane wheels. And they even were sprayed on fighter planes to protect against corrosion from salty seawater.
The war required a massive run up in plastics production. Responding in emergency mode, America’s chemists and plastic makers proved invaluable to our nation’s war efforts. It soon became readily clear what these innovative materials could do.
Post War Boom(ers)
In the late 40s and 50s, these new materials began replacing traditional materials in everyday life, from car seats to refrigerators to food packaging.
Production boomed with the “Baby Boomers.” New plastics were invented – e.g., polyester, polypropylene, and polystyrene – that further cemented the role of plastics in our society and economy.
As the production of plastics rose, the Plastics Material Manufacturers Association in 1950 consolidated its efforts with the Manufacturing Chemists Association (today’s ACC). This kicked off a long and fruitful collaboration between plastic and chemical enterprises.
During the post-war decades, we discovered an interesting characteristic of these modern materials: Plastics allowed us to do more with less because they’re lightweight yet strong.
Later studies demonstrated what industry folks presumed at the time. In general, plastics reduce key environmental impacts of products and packaging compared to materials like glass, paper, and metals. By switching to plastics, we use less energy and create less waste and fewer carbon emissions than typical alternatives.
In short, the switch to plastics contributes immensely to sustainability, an often-overlooked characteristic. Perhaps somewhat unknowingly, chemists (and the companies they worked with) once again were at the forefront of contributing solutions to serious societal challenges.
Is This Sustainable?
As the last century was winding down, personal consumption was soaring. And Americans began to take greater notice of these new-ish materials that were displacing traditional glass, paper, and metals.
In 1987, a wayward barge full of trash travelled from New York to Belize looking for a home for its stinky cargo. The barge received extensive national media attention and stoked fears of a “garbage crisis.” The public began to blame the rapid growth of plastics, particularly packaging, for our garbage problem.
Consumption also was growing rapidly across much of the world before and after the turn of the century. But solid waste infrastructure was growing more slowly than needed in many places.
Increasing amounts of mismanaged refuse wound up in rivers and waterways and our ocean, where currents carried it across the globe. While most refuse sinks, many plastics are buoyant, making them more visible and concerning. As awareness grew of marine litter’s effects on wildlife and beaches, so too did concerns over the role of plastics in our global society.
In light of these and other events, many people began questioning the sustainability of plastics.
Over these decades, plastic makers and the entire value chain responded in part by encouraging growth in plastics recycling. Most communities successfully added plastic bottle/containers to their recycling programs, and plastic bottle recycling rates soon reached par with glass bottles.
And the widely admired “Plastics Make it Possible” campaign helped educate and remind Americans of the many solutions that plastics provide… solutions made possible by the very nature of these innovative, modern materials.
On the ACC front, at the turn of the century, plastic makers reorganized as ACC’s Plastics Division to improve organizational and advocacy efficiencies – and to ramp up solutions.
Making Sustainable Change
Today, most Americans appreciate the benefits of plastics… and they want to see more advances in sustainability. For example, Americans want to see increased recycling of all plastic packaging, especially the newer lightweight flexible packaging that’s replacing heavier materials. And they want an end to plastic waste in our environment.
So today, the Plastics Division is focused on “making sustainable change” by finding new ways to make plastics lighter, stronger, more efficient, and more recyclable. And by driving down greenhouse gas emissions from products and production.
We’re working to keep plastics in our economy and out of our environment. To achieve this, we’re focused on helping build a circular economy for plastics, in which plastics are reused instead of discarded.
We’re continuing to innovate, investing billions of dollars in next generation advanced recycling. Empowered by chemistry and engineering, these technologies make it possible for plastics to be remade into high-quality raw materials for new plastics. Again and again.
We’re advocating for a circular economy in statehouses and at the federal level with our 5 Actions for Sustainable Change. These policies are needed to help us reach our goal: by 2040, all U.S. plastic packaging will be recycled, reused, or recovered.
And we’re actively supporting a global agreement among nations to end plastic waste in our environment.
America’s Change Makers The story of plastics is evolving. It’s constantly being rewritten by our chemists, engineers, designers, and technicians. People we call America’s Change Makers who dedicate their careers to making sustainable change.
Today this story includes enabling renewable energy. Efficiently delivering safe water. Combatting climate change. Contributing to accessible, affordable medical treatments.
From helping save elephants a century and a half ago to driving down greenhouse gas emissions today, America’s Plastic Makers are leveraging our history of innovation to help solve some of society’s biggest challenges. And to create a cleaner, brighter future.
Urban activities — think construction, transportation, heating, cooling and more — are major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. Today, a growing number of cities are striving to slash their emission to net zero — here’s what they need to do.
By: Deepa Padmanaban View the original article here
Global temperatures are on the rise — up by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial era and expected to continue inching higher — with dire consequences for people and wildlife such as intense floods, cyclones and heat waves. To curb disaster, experts urge restricting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, which would mean cutting greenhouse gas emissions, by 2050, to net zero — when the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere equals the amount that’s removed.
More than 800 cities around the world, from Mumbai to Denver, have pledged to halve their carbon emissions by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. These are crucial contributions, because cities are responsible for 71 percent to 76 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions due to buildings, transportation, heating, cooling and more. And the proportion of people living in cities is projected to increase, such that an estimated 68 percent of the world’s population will be city dwellers by 2050.
“Urban areas play a vital role in climate change mitigation due to the long lifespans of buildings and transportation infrastructures,” write the authors of a 2021 article on net-zero cities in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Are cities built densely, or do they sprawl? Do citizens drive everywhere in private cars, or do they use efficient, green public transportation? How do they heat their homes or cook their food? Such factors profoundly affect a city’s carbon emissions, says review coauthor Anu Ramaswami, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and India studies at Princeton University.
Ramaswami has decades of experience in the area of urban infrastructure — buildings, transport, energy, water, waste management and green infrastructure — and has helped cities in the United States, China and India plan for urban sustainability. For cities to get to net zero, she tells Knowable, the changes must touch myriad aspects of city life. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why are the efforts of cities important? What part do they play in emissions reductions?
Cities are where the majority of the population lives. Also, 90 percent of global GDP (gross domestic product) is generated in urban areas. All the essential infrastructure needed for a human settlement — energy, transport, water, shelter, food, construction materials, green and public spaces, waste management — come together in urban areas.
So there’s an opportunity to transform these systems.
You can think about getting to net zero from a supply-side perspective — using renewable, or green, energy for power supply and transport — which is what I think dominates the conversation. But to get to net zero, you need to also shape the demand, or consumption, side: reduce the demand for energy. But we haven’t done enough research to understand what policies and urban designs help reduce demand in cities. Most national plans focus largely on the supply side.
You also need to devise ways to create carbon sinks: that is, remove carbon from the atmosphere to help offset the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
These three — renewable energy supply, demand reduction through efficient urban design and lifestyle changes, and carbon sinks — are the broad strategies to get to net zero.
How can a city tackle demand?
Reducing demand for energy can be through efficiency — using less energy for the same services. This can be done through better land-use planning, and through behavior and lifestyle changes.
Transportation is a great example. So much energy is spent in moving people, and most of that personal mobility happens in cities. But better urban planning can reduce vehicle travel substantially. Mitigating sprawl is one of the biggest ways to reduce demand for travel and thus reduce travel emissions. In India, for example, Ahmedabad has planned better to reduce urban sprawl, compared to Bangalore, where sprawl is huge.
Well-designed, dynamic ride sharing, like the Uber and Lyft pools in the US, can reduce total vehicle miles by 20 or 30 percent, but you need the right policies to prevent empty vehicles from driving around and waiting to pick up people, which can actually increase travel. These are big reductions on the demand side. And then you add public transit and walkable neighborhoods.
Electrification of transportation — the supply side — is important. But if you only think about vehicle electrification, you’re missing the opportunity of efficiency.
Your review talks about the need to move to electric heating and cooking. Why is that important?
There’s a lot of emphasis on increasing efficiency of devices and systems to reduce these big sources of energy use, and thus emissions — heating, transport and cooking. But to get to net zero, you also have to change the way you provide heating, transport and cooking. And in most cities, heating and cooking involve the direct use of fossil fuels.
For example, house heating is a big thing in cold climates. Right now, we use natural gas or fuel oil for heating in the US, which is a problem because they are fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases when they are burned. With many electric utilities pledging to reduce the emissions form power generation to near-zero, cities could electrify heating so that the heating system is free of greenhouse gas emissions.
Cooking is another one. Some cities in the US, like New York City and others in California, have adopted policies that restrict natural gas infrastructure for cooking in new public buildings and neighborhood developments, thereby promoting electric cooking. Electrifying cooking enables it to be carbon-emissions-free if the source of the electricity is net zero-emitting.
Many strategies require behavior change from citizens and public and private sectors — such as moving from gasoline-powered vehicles to lower-emission vehicles and public transport. How can cities encourage such behaviors?
Cities can offer free parking for electric vehicles. For venues that are very popular, they’ll offer electric vehicle charging, and parking right up front. But more than private vehicles, cities have leverage on public vehicles and taxi fleets. Many cities are focusing on changing their buses to electric. In Australia, Canberra is on track to convert their entire public transit fleet to electric buses. That makes people aware, because the lack of noise and lack of pollution is very noticeable, and beneficial.
The Indian government is also offering subsidies for electric scooters. And some cities across the world are allowing green taxis to go to the head of the line. Another incentive is subsidies: The US was offering tax credits for buying electric cars, for example, and some companies subsidize car-pooling, walking or transit. At Princeton, if I don’t drive to campus, I get some money back.
The main thing is to reduce private motorized mobility, get buses to be electric and nudge people into active mobility — walking, biking — or public transit.
How well are cities tackling the move to net zero?
Cities are making plans in readiness. In New York City, as I mentioned, newly built public housing will have electric cooking and many cities in California have adopted similar policies for electric cooking.
In terms of mobility, California has among the world’s largest electric vehicle ownership. In India, Ola, a cab company similar to Uber, has made a pledge to electrify its fleet. The Indian government has set targets for electrifying its vehicle sector, but then cities have to think about where to put charging stations.
A lot of cities have been doing low carbon transitions, with mixed success. Low carbon means reducing carbon by 10 to 20 percent. Most of them focus entirely on efficiency and energy conservation and will rely on the grid decarbonizing, but that’s just not fast enough to get you to net zero by 2050. I showed in one of my papers that even in the best case, cities would reduce carbon emissions by about 1 percent per year. Which isn’t bad, but in 45 years, you get about a 45 percent reduction, and you need 80-plus percent to get to net zero. That means eliminating gas/fossil fuel use in mobility, heating and cooking, and creating construction materials that either do not emit carbon during manufacturing or might even absorb or store carbon.
That’s the systemic change that is going to contribute to getting to net zero, which we define in our Annual Review of Environment and Resources paper as at least 80 percent reduction. The remaining 20 percent could be saved through strategies to capture and store carbon dioxide from the air, such as through tree-planting, although the long-term persistence of the trees is highly uncertain.
Are there notable case studies of cities you could discuss?
Denver has been covering the most sectors. Some cities cover only transportation and energy use in buildings, but Denver really quantified additional sectors. They even measured the energy that goes into creating construction materials, which is another thing the net zero community needs to think about. Net zero is not only about what goes on inside your city. It is also about the carbon embodied in materials that you bring into your city and what you export from your city.
Denver was keeping track of how much cement was being used, how much carbon dioxide was needed to produce that cement, called embodied carbon; what emissions were coming from cars, trucks, SUVs and energy use in buildings. They measured all of this before they did any interventions.
The city has also done a great job of transitioning from low-carbon goals (for example, a 10 percent reduction in a five-year span) to deep decarbonization goals of reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050. During their first phase of low-carbon planning back in 2010, they counted the impact of various actions in each of these sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent below 1990 baselines, through building efficiency measures, energy efficiency and promotion of transit, and were successful in meeting their early goals.
Denver is also a very good example of how to keep track of interventions and show that it met its goals. If the city did an energy efficiency campaign, it kept track of how many houses were reached, and what sort of mitigation happened as a result.
But they realized that they’re never going to get down to net zero because, while efficiency and conservation reduce gas use for heating and gasoline use for travel, it cannot get them to be zero. So in 2018, they decided that they’re now going to do more systemic changes to try to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050, and monitor them the same way. This includes systemic shifts to heating via electric heat pumps and shifting to electric cars as the electric grid also decarbonizes.
So it’s counting activities again: How many electric vehicles are there? How many heat pumps are you putting into the houses that can be driven by electricity rather than by burning gas? How many people adopt these measures? What’s the impact of adoption?
What you’re saying is that this accounting before and after an intervention is put in place is very important. Is it very challenging for cities to do this kind of accounting?
It’s like an institutional habit — like going to the doctor for a checkup every two years or something. Someone in the city has to be charged with doing the counting, and so many times, I think it just falls off the radar. That was what was nice about Denver — and we worked with them, gave them a spreadsheet to track all these activities.
Though very few cities have done before and after, Denver is not the only one. There are 15 other cities showcased by ICLEI, an organization that works with cities to transition to green energy.
I have worked with ICLEI-USA to develop protocols on how to report and measure carbon emissions. One of the key questions is: What sectors are we tracking and decarbonizing? As I mentioned at the start, most cities agree with tackling energy use in transportation and building operations, and greenhouse emissions from waste management and wastewater. ICLEI has been a leader in developing accounting protocols, but cities and researchers are realizing that cities can do more to address construction materials — for example, influencing choice between cement and timber, which may even store carbon in cities over the long term.
I serve on ICLEI-USA’s advisory committee for updating city carbon emission measurement protocols, and I recommend that cities also consider carbon embodied in construction materials and food, so that they can take action on these sectors as well.
But we don’t have the right tools yet to quantify all the major sectors and all the pathways to net zero that a city can contribute to. That’s the next step in research: ways to quantify all those things, for a city. We are developing those tools in a zero-carbon calculator for cities.
By Bloomberg Cities Network View the original article here
As gas prices surge past $5 a gallon and the global climate crisis deepens, city leaders stand on the front lines of America’s transition to more sustainable and affordable transportation options.
Cities are taking bold steps to accelerate the changeover to electric vehicles (EVs), using their purchasing power to prime new markets for electrified cars, trucks, buses, and bikes, and making it easier for residents to make the switch. Leading the way are 25 cities who received support and resources from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ network of partners while participating in the American Cities Climate Challenge.
Mayors in these cities increasingly see transforming transportation as critical to delivering results for residents when it comes to sustainability, equity, and public health. The transportation sector is the single largest source of carbon emissions in the United States. It’s also a driver of air pollution and respiratory conditions such as asthma that disproportionately impact people of color and low-income households. On both fronts, electric vehicles offer benefits over models that run on fossil fuels.
“We can’t afford to wait for someone else to take the kind of bold action on climate change we need to protect our community,” Albuquerque, N.M., Mayor Tim Keller said while announcing his city’s first purchase of EVs for the municipal fleet. “Any realistic effort to fight climate change has to include steps to reduce the impact of vehicles on our air quality and public health…and the time has come to turn the page on gas-powered cars and trucks.”
With billions of federal infrastructure dollars available to supercharge this transition, local leaders will have an even bigger role to play in the years ahead. Cities that want help navigating federal infrastructure funding opportunities can sign up for supports through the Local Infrastructure Hub, a new initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies and its partners.
Here are four ways that the 25 cities that participated in the American Cities Climate Challenge are driving innovation with electric vehicles—using data, resident engagement, and collaboration to make a lasting impact.
1. Establishing community car sharing programs and charging stations
Car-sharing programs have already shown that they can save participating households thousands of dollars and take cars off the street. Now, cities are electrifying these car-sharing programs, expanding access to both EVs and places to charge them, particularly for traditionally underserved communities.
St. Paul, Minn., for example, launched the largest publicly owned, renewably powered, electric car-sharing program in the nation, Evie Carshare, with 100 EVs currently operating and plans to grow the fleet to 173. Equitable access was a major factor in determining the pricing structure and charging locations. The program design was informed by a prototyping process with residents and, to make it affordable to all, Evie Carshare includes a discounted membership rate for people with low incomes. Car-share locations also include spots where anyone with an EV can charge up, effectively boosting the number of public EV charging ports in the city by 70 percent.
An Evie carshare and charging station. (Photo courtesy of St. Paul, Minn.)
Similarly, Boston partnered with E4TheFuture and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center for the launch of the EV car sharing program Good2Go. It’s an income-tiered service with a focus on equity that enables qualifying residents to pay as little as $5 per hour to use a vehicle. Meanwhile, St. Louis is piloting a program for social services agencies to share EVs in order to shuttle seniors to medical appointments and to deliver meals. The agencies are seeing savings in reduced fuel costs, freeing up resources for other services.
2. Electrifying municipal fleets
City leaders also are looking at their own fleets of vehicles as a big opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, cut fuel and maintenance expenses, and lead by example. Across the American Cities Climate Challenge, 22 cities have already purchased more than 1,300 electric vehicles and have made plans to purchase dramatically more in the years ahead.
St. Louis, for example, started by adding four new EVs to its municipal fleet, and plans to acquire at least eight more in the coming months. Each vehicle is labeled “Zero Emissions 100% Electric” with eye-catching green streaks on the side, to promote the change with residents. For the long term, an executive order requires city agencies to continue prioritizing the purchase of low- and no-emission vehicles to keep the municipal fleet transition going.
Albuquerque has likewise committed to a 100-percent clean light-duty fleet, meaning that any eligible pickup truck and passenger vehicle purchased from now on will be an electric, hybrid, or alternative-fuel vehicle. Meanwhile, Boston added a new kind of vehicle to its municipal fleet: an electric-assist cargo tricycle. City leaders are testing it to see if employees would be willing to use the e-bike for work-related trips instead of a car or truck.
3. Electrifying public transit
City buses are a ripe target for electrification. Compared with existing diesel models, electric buses significantly reduce air pollution, make less noise, lower maintenance and operating expenses, and can deliver a more comfortable experience for passengers.
Honolulu is looking to leverage all of those benefits as part of an effort to make public transit a more attractive option for residents. In addition to building its first dedicated bus lane since 1988, the city has incorporated 17 fully electric buses into its service routes. It’s also installed a charging system to support the process of transitioning 100 percent of the city’s bus fleet to fully electric by 2035. These zero-emission electric buses are not only providing cleaner transportation, but they are notably quieter, to the enjoyment of passengers and residents.
The addition of the 1.3-mile bus lane in Honolulus’ busiest downtown corridor is help move more residents throughout the city. (Photo courtesy of Honolulu)
In Charlotte, N.C., the city council approved a groundbreaking approach to overcome initial hesitation about upfront costs of transitioning to electric buses. A pilot program enables the city to try out—and train staff on—18 electric buses and charging infrastructure from various manufacturers in order to collect data on what works. The program is an important first step in the city’s mission to reach net-zero emissions targets and has the potential to be a model for other cities.
4.Requiring new buildings to be ready for EV charging infrastructure
For EV owners, more than 80 percent of their vehicle charging occurs at home. But workplaces are also a popular place to charge. That’s why a number of cities are requiring newly constructed residential and commercial buildings to design-in the ability to scale up future EV charging infrastructure. Doing so up front adds less than 0.2 percent to construction costs, while sparing much higher costs associated with retrofitting buildings later.
Through its new EV Ready code, Orlando, Fla., is now requiring all new buildings and major remodel projects to integrate EV charging infrastructure. Specifically, the ordinance requires 20 percent of multi-family, hotel, and parking structure spaces and 10 percent of non-residential parking spaces to be EV-capable, which requires installing dedicated electrical capacity and conduit to parking spaces. By starting with community engagement workshops and then collaborating with developers and EV-industry stakeholders, city leaders garnered support needed to pass this ordinance, a major milestone in achieving its sustainability goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 90 percent by 2040. Similar EV-readiness ordinances recently passed in Boston, Columbus, Ohio, Charlotte, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.
Social impact and decarbonization strategies will be the pillars of urban development projects in the coming years View the original article here
From revamping disused docklands to rejuvenating rundown neighbourhoods, cities are embarking on urban development projects that put health and sustainability at the heart of placemaking.
These mixed-use schemes increasingly focus on implementing features that support wellbeing, champion strong environmental credentials, build communities and promote equality and inclusion.
The redevelopment of the western edge of Dublin city center aims to bring the concept of the 15-minute city to life while Rotterdam’s M4H project will re-green the site surrounding a manufacturing hub, and add sport facilities, housing, hospitality and cultural space.
Such schemes show how thinking around what makes a successful city is shifting, says Jeremy Kelly, Lead Director, Global Cities Research at JLL.
“City governments are looking beyond traditional metrics like GDP and employment growth and are refocusing on harder-to-measure factors relating to liveability, opportunity and experience,” he explains.
“That has implications for real estate because city governments now expect the industry to deliver developments that have a positive social impact.”
Looking beyond the money
Many of today’s schemes draw from major urban projects of the previous decade – such as Hudson Yards in New York City and London’s King’s Cross.
“These were substantial projects that changed the spatial logic of a city, opening up new areas that were increasingly mixed-use, and cutting-edge when it came to responding to the demands of occupiers and well-off residents,” says Kelly.
One big difference is that urban transformation projects of the 2020s will positively impact surrounding communities, in part by addressing challenges to provide affordable housing.
“That’s where the shift is – thinking about the community impact,” says Kelly. “And for developments to boost or retain their value, they’ll need to be part of neighbourhoods that are also regenerating.”
Health is another key focus for today’s projects, tying into trends such wellness in the workplace and more active lifestyles.
Outdoor access, natural light and green areas – long shown to boost mental health – will be critical features for projects, along with easy access to leisure and healthcare amenities.
“Health and wellbeing concepts are foundational to today’s developments, whatever the size of the project,” says Walid Goudiard, Head of Project and Development Services at JLL. “It’s a matter of placemaking and curating the built environment to provide a healthy, positive experience whether in an office or residential setting.”
The McEwan in Edinburgh, for example, is the first European residential scheme to receive a Fitwel 3-start rating for its focus on health and wellbeing through landscaped gardens and neighbourhood amenities.
And there will be more to come. “The pandemic has accelerated that transition toward creating more human and sustainable places,” says Richa Walia, Director, Work Dynamics Research at JLL. “There’s a genuine desire among companies to act responsibly and their first priority is to create human-centric places.”
Sustainability for social good
Environmental concerns will equally guide urban development, as municipalities develop plans to hit net zero targets and more real estate companies report their environmental impact in line with globally recognized standards.
In Paris, the recently completed regeneration of Clichy-Batignolles is designed as an eco-quarter with low-energy building powered from geothermal and solar sources.
Biodiversity, too, will become a key pillar for transformation projects, with city authorities more likely to greenlight schemes with features such as green roofs, areas given over to rewilding and living walls. Many municipalities now restrict the construction practice of soil sealing to improve carbon capture in buildings and boost biodiversity.
What’s more, plans will need to consider retrofitting and repurposing existing buildings instead of embarking on carbon-intensive new builds. Here, technology and digitisation can offer two vital benefits in optimising resources, says Goudiard.
“Firstly, sensor-enabled smart buildings can automate operations for improved efficiency and reduced emissions,” he explains. “Digitizing spaces also helps with tracking how they’re used and then getting the maximum value from them – especially in dense city centers. The concern is how to embed tech solutions in a way that really benefits users.”
Technology could also boost inclusiveness in urban developments through data analytics that align space design with users’ needs – such as enhancing play areas or accessible walkways – or digital services that offer more equitable access to housing and infrastructure. However, with less defined metrics to track than decarbonisation initiatives, inclusion can be a design challenge in many projects.
“There is a lot of work to be done when it comes to creating inclusive spaces,” says Walia. “The elements that make up diversity and inclusion need to be addressed holistically. Companies are trying to understand how a development can truly create social impact.”
Governance is also moving with the times.Whole of place governance, where authorities collaborate closely with the users of a space, will be the critical difference in urban transformation projects of the coming years.
City planning in Paris, for example, now calls for developers to run consultations where local communities provide feedback to design teams and investors on major projects, helping to improve inclusiveness.
“It’s a more holistic view that’s not just based on the economic output of that district,” says Kelly. “It’s about value creation and improving quality of life for the whole neighborhood.”
As contractors begin to plan future projects, be on the lookout for these seven sustainable building materials in 2021 and beyond View the original article here
With society becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, more and more project owners are looking for sustainable building materials to include in their properties. Not only do eco-friendly buildings substantially increase the resale value of a property in a forward-thinking market, but they can help save on utility and maintenance costs as well.
As contractors begin to plan future projects, be on the lookout for these six sustainable building materials in 2021 and beyond.
1. Composite Roofing Shingles
When people think of sustainability, they often think about materials that produce their own energy or help eliminate the need for energy. However, one aspect that is often overlooked is materials that are long-lasting.
Continually having to repair, manage, and replace building materials is a major drain on resources. As such, common roof tile types like asphalt shingles and wood shakes that frequently raise, crack, and fade can become energy pits not only from the perspective of allowing air and moisture to be transferred into and out of the house, but simply because they require so much attention to maintain.
A better alternative would be composite roofing shingles that stay true to the natural aspect of traditional materials while requiring a fraction of the maintenance resources.
2. Smart Glass Windows
A major trend in sustainability in recent years has been the use of large windows to allow more natural light flow and reduce the need for electric light consumption.
While the merits of this building practice cannot be understated, the benefits can be compounded by using smart glass as the window material of choice. Smart glass is an innovative material that changes its heating properties based on how heat and air conditioning is applied in the house. For example, during the summer months, the glass turns translucent to block any heating wavelengths that may require your air conditioning to work overtime while in the winter, the glass becomes transparent to allow the sunlight to aid in heating efforts.
3. Bamboo Floors
If you are looking for a very bold option for sustainable living, consider using bamboo flooring. While you may not want to take the step of flooring your entire house in bamboo, it makes for a great option for add-ons, antechambers, and mudrooms.
Bamboo has a strikingly similar appearance to traditional wood while having a harvest cycle of a mere three years, compared to roughly 25 years for a normal tree. By choosing bamboo, you can slow the rate of deforestation by giving trees a chance to grow back.
4. Insulated Concrete Framing
Not only does framing help determine what kind of renovations your home can withstand, but it is a fundamental element in controlling heating and cooling costs.
While prefabricated wood panels will come with small cracks and crevices that allow for the transfer of air and moisture into and out of your home, those using an ICF construction (insulated concrete forms) will provide an airtight barrier that prevents unwanted energy transfers while also providing elite thermal mass to help maintain a consistent interior temperature.
5. Solar Panels
The inclusion of solar panels on the roof and in the yard is increasing in prevalence as technology improves and designs become more aesthetically pleasing. Both solar panel tiles and mounted structures are effective ways to reduce a home’s dependence on nonrenewable energy.
6. Eco-Friendly Insulation
Any type of insulation will theoretically be eco-friendly if it sufficiently cuts down on energy used for heating and cooling. However, some of this saving is negated if batts, fillers, and/or sprays used for insulation are not sustainably sourced or use toxic chemicals to help in binding and fire resistance.
As such, an increasingly popular alternative is hemp insulation. This sustainable product of up to 92% natural hemp maintains all of the same insulative properties of more traditional fiberglass or cellulose. In fact, with its ability to be compressed, hemp can even provide superior insulation for homes that are willing to pay a little extra.
Conclusion
The trend of eco-friendly homes is only set to strengthen in 2021 and beyond. Therefore, if you are in the market for a home, or are considering a renovation, take a look at one of the six sustainable listed above for some environmentally-friendly inspiration.
Matt Lee is the owner of the Innovative Building Materials blog and a content writer for the building materials industry. He is focused on helping fellow homeowners, contractors, and architects discover materials and methods of construction that save money, improve energy efficiency, and increase property value.
Experts say 2021 could be a pivotal year for EV adoption thanks to greater selection of EV offerings, rising consumer interest NEWS PROVIDED BY EDMONDS View the original article here
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Electric vehicle sales are poised to hit their highest level on record in 2021, according to the car shopping experts at Edmunds. Edmunds data shows that EV sales made up 1.9% of retail sales in the United States in 2020; Edmunds analysts expect this number to grow to 2.5% this year.
“After years of speculation and empty promises, 2021 is actually shaping up to be a pivotal year for growth in the EV sector,” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ executive director of insights. “We’re not only about to see a massive leap in the number of EVs available in the market; we’re also going to see a more diverse lineup of electric vehicles that better reflect current consumer preferences. And given that the new presidential administration has pledged its support for electrification, the U.S. is likely to see incentive programs targeted at fostering the growth of this technology further.”
“2021 is actually shaping up to be a pivotal year for growth in the EV sector” – Jessica Caldwell, analyst, Edmunds
Edmunds analysts anticipate that 30 EVs from 21 brands will become available for sale this year, compared to 17 vehicles from 12 brands in 2020. Notably, this will be the first year that these offerings represent all three major vehicle categories: Consumers will have the choice among 11 cars, 13 SUVs and six trucks in 2021, whereas only 10 cars and seven SUVs were available last year. For the full list of EVs expected to come to market in 2021, please see the table below.
This diverse spread of EV offerings should help encourage stronger loyalty among EV owners, which has dwindled over the years as shoppers have gravitated toward larger vehicles. According to Edmunds data, 71% of EV owners who didn’t buy another EV traded in their vehicle for a truck or SUV in 2020, compared to 60% in 2019 and 34% in 2015.
“Americans have a love affair with trucks and SUVs, to the detriment of EVs, which have until recently been mostly passenger cars,” said Caldwell. “Automakers should have a much better shot of recapturing some of the EV buyers who they’ve lost now that they can offer larger, more utilitarian electric vehicles.”
Edmunds analysts note that this infusion of fresh new products comes at a time where the market is also seeing a positive shift in consumer interest in EVs. According to Google Trends data, consumer searches for electric trucks and SUVs have recently hit a high point after trending upward for years.
“Besides affordability, one of the biggest barriers to increased EV sales has simply been tepid consumer reception — it’s been tough for companies that aren’t Tesla to crack the code of how to get shoppers hyped up for these vehicles,” said Caldwell. “But in the past year we’ve seen automakers throw huge advertising dollars behind their EV launches in an attempt to drum up some buzz, and it’s promising that consumers seem to at least be more aware of the options out there.”
As more consumers look to EVs as a possibility for their next car purchase, Edmunds experts emphasize that shoppers should take extra time to consider their alternatives and do their research.
“Buying an EV is an entirely different beast than a traditional car purchase, so extra research and diligence are key,” said Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ senior manager of insights. “Range and weather conditions play a huge factor in determining whether certain EVs make sense for your everyday needs, and whether you own a home with a garage or rent an apartment could affect your charging situation. Federal and state tax incentives are at play with these purchases. And with a number of manufacturers following Tesla’s direct sale model, there might not be opportunities to take a test drive, or even to trade in your current vehicle, like you would at a traditional dealership.”
To help consumers, the Edmunds experts have put together a comprehensive analysis of the true cost of powering an EV, and they also maintain an authoritative EV rankings page that highlights the best electric vehicles currently in production.
Electric Vehicles Expected to be Available for Sale in 2021
Looking at the whole life cycle of EVs, the verdict is clear.
Looking at the whole life cycle of EVs, the verdict is clear. Written By: David M. Kuchta View the original article here.
Are electric vehicles truly better than gas cars for the environment? Not in all facets or in all regions of the world, but overall, unquestionably, yes—and as time goes on, only more so.
While much clickbait has been written questioning the environmental superiority of EVs, the cumulative science confirms that in almost every part of the world, driving an EV produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants than a gas-powered car. The internal combustion engine is a mature technology that has seen only incremental changes for the past half-century. By contrast, electric vehicles are still an emerging technology witnessing continual improvements in efficiency and sustainability, while dramatic changes in how the world produces electricity will only make electric vehicles cleaner.
“We still have a long way to go, and we don’t have the luxury of waiting,” said David Reichmuth of the Union of Concern Scientists in a recent interview with Treehugger.1
The transportation sector generates 24% around the world and 29% of total greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the United States—the largest single contributor in the U.S.2 According to the EPA, the typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year at an average of 404 grams per mile.3 Beyond carbon emissions, road traffic from gas-powered vehicles generates fine particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides, the adverse health effects of which—from asthma and heart disease to cancer and pregnancy disorders—have been well demonstrated and disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color.4 EVs can’t solve all those problems, but they can make our world a more livable place.
Life-Cycle Analysis
The key to comparing gas-powered vehicles with electric ones is life-cycle analysis, which accounts for the entire environmental impact of vehicles from the extraction of raw materials to the manufacturing of vehicles, the actual driving, the consumption of fuel, and their end-of-life disposal.
The most significant areas of difference are in the upstream processes (raw materials and manufacturing), during driving, and in fuel sources. Gas-powered vehicles are currently superior when it comes to resources and manufacturing. EVs are superior when it comes to driving, while the issue of fuel consumption depends on the source of the electricity that fuels EVs. Where the electricity supply is relatively clean, EVs provide a major benefit over gas-powered cars. Where the electricity is predominantly coal—the dirtiest of the fossil fuels—gas-powered cars are less polluting than electric vehicles.
But coal is less of a major source of electricity around the world, and the future favors EVs fueled by clean energy. In two comprehensive life-cycle studies published in 2020, the environmental superiority of gas-powered vehicles applied to no more than 5% of the world’s transport.5 In all other cases, the negative impacts of upstream processes and energy production were outweighed by the benefits of a lifetime of emissions-free driving.
In the United States, given the decreasing reliance on coal in the electricity grid, “driving the average EV is responsible for fewer global warming emissions than the average new gasoline car everywhere in the US,” according to Reichmuth’s recent life-cycle analysis for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
As Nikolas Hill, co-author of a major 2020 study for the European Commission, told the podcast How to Save a Planet: “It’s very clear from our findings, and actually a range of other studies in this area, electric vehicles, be they fully electric vehicles, petrol-electric, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, are unquestionably better for our climate than conventional cars. There should be absolutely no doubt about that, looking from a full life-cycle analysis.”
Raw Materials and Manufacturing
Currently, creating an EV has a more negative environmental impact than producing a gas-powered vehicle. This is, in large part, a result of battery manufacturing, which requires the mining, transportation, and processing of raw materials, often extracted in unsustainable and polluting ways.6 Battery manufacturing also requires high energy intensity, which can lead to increased GHG emissions.7
In China, for example, the raw materials and manufacturing process of a single gasoline car produces 10.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while it takes 13 tonnes of CO2 to produce an electric vehicle.8 Equally, a recent Vancouver study of comparable electric and gas-powered cars found that the manufacture of an electric vehicle uses nearly twice as much energy as manufacturing a gas-powered vehicle.9
But the differences in manufacturing, including raw materials extraction, need to be placed in the context of the entire life cycle of the vehicles. The majority of a gas vehicle’s emissions come not in the manufacturing process but in the cumulative time the vehicle is on the road. By comparison, raw materials and manufacturing play a larger role in the total life-cycle emissions of electric vehicles.10
On average, roughly one-third of total emissions for EVs come from the production process, three times that of a gas vehicle.11 However, in countries like France, which rely on low-carbon energy sources for their electricity production, the manufacturing process can constitute 75% to nearly 100% of a vehicle’s life-cycle GHG emissions.12 Once the vehicle is produced, in many countries emissions drop precipitously.
So while EV manufacturing produces higher emissions than the production of a gas-powered car does, a lifetime of low- to zero-emissions driving leads EVs to have greater environmental benefits. While, as we saw, manufacturing emissions are higher in China for EVs than for gas-powered cars, over the lifetime of the vehicles, EV emissions in China are 18% lower than fossil-fueled cars.13 Likewise, the Vancouver study cited above found that over their lifetimes, electric vehicles emit roughly half the greenhouse gases of comparable gasoline cars.14 And the benefits of EV driving come quickly after manufacturing: according to one study, “an electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only two years.”15
Driving
The longer an EV is on the road, the less its manufacturing impact makes a difference. Driving conditions and driving behavior, however, do play a role in vehicle emissions. Auxiliary energy consumption (that is, energy not used to propel the car forward or backward, such as heating and cooling) contributes roughly one-third of vehicle emissions in any type of vehicle.16 Heating in a gas-powered car is provided by waste engine heat, while cabin heat in an EV needs to be generated using energy from the battery, increasing its environmental impact.17
Driving behavior and patterns, though less quantifiable, also matter. For example, EVs are far more efficient than gas-powered vehicles in city traffic, where an internal combustion engine continues to burn fuel while idling, while in the same situation the electric motor truly is idle. This is why EPA mileage estimates are higher for EVs in city driving than on highways, while the reverse is true for gasoline cars. More research needs to be done beyond specific case studies on the different driving behavior and patterns between drivers of EVs compared to gas-powered vehicles.18
Traffic Pollution
While most studies of the benefits of electric vehicles are understandably related to greenhouse gas emissions, the wider environmental impacts of non-exhaust emissions due to traffic are also a consideration in the life-cycle analysis.
The negative health consequences of particulate matter (PM) from road traffic are well-documented.19 Road traffic generates PM from resuspension of road dust back into the air, and from the wear-and-tear of tires and brake pads, with resuspension representing some 60% of all non-exhaust emissions.20 Due to the weight of the battery, electric vehicles are on average 17% to 24% heavier than comparable gas-powered ones, leading to higher particulate matter emissions from re-suspension and tire wear.21
Braking comparisons, however, favor EVs. Fine particles from braking are the source of approximately 20% of traffic-related PM 2.5 pollution.22 Gas-powered vehicles rely on the friction from disc brakes for deceleration and stopping, while regenerative braking allows EV drivers to use the kinetic force of the motor to slow the vehicle down. By reducing the use of disc brakes, particularly in stop-and-go traffic, regenerative braking can reduce brake wear by 50% and 95% (depending on the study) compared to gas-powered vehicles.23 Overall, studies show that the comparatively greater non-exhaust emissions from EVs due to weight are roughly equal to the comparatively lower particulate emissions from regenerative braking.24
Fueling
Beyond manufacturing, differences in fuel and its consumption are “one of the main drivers for life-cycle environmental impacts of EVs.”25 Some of that impact is determined by the fuel efficiency of the vehicle itself. An electric vehicle on average converts 77% of the electricity stored in its battery toward moving the car forward, while a gas-powered car converts from 12% to 30% of the energy stored in gasoline; much of the rest is wasted as heat.26
The efficiency of a battery in storing and discharging energy is also a factor. Both gas-powered cars and EVs lose fuel efficiency as they age. For gasoline cars, this means they burn more gasoline and emit more pollutants the longer they are on the road. An EV loses fuel efficiency when its battery becomes less efficient in the charging and discharging of energy, and thus uses more electricity. While a battery’s charge-discharge efficiency is 98% when new, it can drop to 80% efficiency in five to ten years, depending on environmental and driving conditions.27
Overall, however, the fuel efficiency of a gas-powered engine decreases more quickly than the efficiency of an electric motor, so the gap in fuel efficiency between EVs and gas-powered cars increases over time. A Consumer Reports study found that an owner of a five- to seven-year-old EV saves two to three times more in fuel costs than the owner of a new EV saves compared to similar gas-powered vehicles.28
Cleaning the Electricity Grid
Yet the extent of the benefits of an electric vehicle depends on factors beyond the vehicle’s control: the energy source of the electricity that fuels it. Because EVs run on standard grid electricity, their emissions level depends on how clean the electricity is going into their batteries. As the electricity grid gets cleaner, the cleanliness gap between EVs and ICE vehicles will grow only wider.
In China, for example, due to a large reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector, electric vehicles were projected to improve from 18% fewer GHG emissions than gasoline cars in 2015 to 36% fewer in 2020.13 In the United States, annual greenhouse gas emissions from an electric vehicle can range from 8.5 kg in Vermont and 2570.9 kg in Indiana, depending on the sources of electricity on the grid.29 The cleaner the grid, the cleaner the car.
On grids supplied exclusively by coal, electric vehicles can produce more GHG than gas-powered vehicles.30 A 2017 comparison of EVs and ICE vehicles in Denmark found BEVs “were not found to be effective in reducing environmental impacts,” in part because the Danish electricity grid consumes a large share of coal.31 By contrast, in Belgium, where a large share of the electricity mix comes from nuclear energy, EVs have lower life-cycle emissions than gas or diesel cars.32 In Europe as a whole, while the average EV “produces 50% less life-cycle greenhouse gases over the first 150,000 kilometers of driving,” that number can vary from 28% to 72%, depending on local electricity production.15
There can also be a trade-off between addressing climate change and addressing local air pollution. In parts of Pennsylvania where the electricity is supplied by a high share of coal-fired plants, electric vehicles may increase local air pollution even while they lower greenhouse gas emissions.33 While electric vehicles provide the highest co-benefits for combating both air pollution and climate change across the United States, in specific regions plug-in hybrid vehicles provide greater benefits than both gas-powered and electric vehicles.34
How Clean Is Your Grid?
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Beyond Tailpipe Emissions Calculator allows users to calculate the greenhouse emissions of an electric or hybrid vehicle based on the energy mix of the electricity grid in their area.
Charging Behavior
If EV drivers currently have little control over the energy mix of their electricity grid, their charging behavior does influence the environmental impact of their vehicles, especially in places where the fuel mix of electricity generation changes throughout the course of the day.35
Portugal, for example, has a high share (55%) of renewable power during peak hours, but increases its reliance on coal (up to 84%) during off-peak hours, when most EV owners charge their vehicles, resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions.”36 In countries with a higher reliance on solar energy, such as Germany, midday charging has the greatest environmental benefit, whereas charging during hours of peak electricity demand (usually in the early evening) draws energy from a grid that relies more heavily on fossil fuels.30
Modifying EV charging behavior means “we can use EVs to benefit the grid,” as David Reichmuth told Treehugger. “EVs can be part of a smarter grid,” where EV owners can work with utilities so that their vehicles are charged when demand on the grid is low and the sources of electricity are clean. With pilot programs already underway, he said, “we’ll soon see the flexibility inherent in EV charging being used to enable a cleaner grid.”
In the build-out of electric vehicle charging stations, the success of efforts to increase the environmental benefit of EVs will also rely on charging stations that use clean or low-carbon energy sources. High-speed DC charging can put demands on the electricity grid, especially during hours of peak electricity demand. This can require utilities to rely more heavily on natural gas “peaker” plants.
Reichmuth noted that many charging stations with DC Fast Charging are installing battery storage to cut their utility costs and also reduce reliance on high-carbon power plants. Charging their batteries with solar-generated electricity and discharging them during peak demand hours allows charging stations to support EV adoption at the same time that they promote solar energy even when the sun isn’t shining.37
End of Life
What happens to electric vehicles when they’ve reached their end of life? As with gas-powered vehicles, scrap yards can recycle or re-sell the metals, electronic waste, tires, and other elements of an electric vehicle. The main difference, of course, is the battery. In gas-powered vehicles, over 98% of the materials by mass in lead-acid batteries are successfully recycled.38 EV battery recycling is still in its infancy since most electric vehicles have only been on the road for fewer than five years. When those vehicles do reach their end of life, there could be some 200,00 metric tons of lithium-ion batteries that need to be disposed. A successful battery recycling program needs to be developed to avoid decreasing the relative benefits of EVs.39
It Only Gets Better
Periods in the life cycle of an electric vehicle can be more environmentally harmful than in similar periods of a gas-powered car, and in areas where the electricity supply is dominated by coal, EVs produce more air pollution and greenhouse gases than gas-powered cars. But those areas are far outweighed by the overall benefits of EV—and the benefits can only improve as EV manufacturing evolves and as electricity grids get cleaner.
Were half of the cars on the road electric, global carbon emissions could be reduced by as much as 1.5 gigatons—equivalent to the current admissions of Russia.40 By 2050, electrification of the transport sector can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 93%, nitrogen oxide emissions by 96%, and sulfur oxide emissions by 99%, compared to 2020 levels, and lead to the prevention of 90,000 premature deaths.41
The electric vehicle industry is young, yet it is already producing cars that are environmentally more beneficial than their gas-powered equivalents. As the industry matures, those benefits can only increase.
By Hannah Alcoseba Fernandez and Tim Ha View the original article here
From banks weaning off dirty energy to green jobs, Eco-Business spotlights the trends that could reshape society and business as the world moves into the post-Covid era.
Solar panels are installed on a rooftop in Shanghai, China. Image: The Climate Group, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr
As Covid-19 raged across the globe this year, policymakers and businesses ripped up more and more of their initial projections and expectations for the year. Memes on social media reflected the new reality of transformed workplaces and confinement to one’s homes.
But not all projections were inaccurate. Covid-19 has accelerated certain trends such as the growth of plant-based protein and the shift to low-carbon energy.
As more countries gear up for mass vaccination exercises, what will 2021 bring? Which impacts of Covid-19 will be enduring, and which will be fleeting?
Here are the trends that we believe will shape sustainability in the year ahead.
1. More lenders will walk away from fossil fuels—and not just coal
The capital flight from dirty energy will not only accelerate in 2021—it will go beyond coal to hit oil and natural gas.
Data by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) shows more than 150 major global financial institutions now have coal exit policies in place, with 65 banks committing to tighter lending guidelines this year alone. The future looks gloomy for the world’s filthiest fossil fuel. The outlook for oil and gas isn’t hunky-dory either.
Covid-19 has raised fears that oil demand could soon be in terminal decline, leading to cuts in long-term price forecasts. Meanwhile, mounting evidence of the tremendous amounts of climate-wrecking methane emitted by the gas industry has been a wake-up call for financial markets.
All major North American banks have ruled out support for Arctic drilling and 53 lenders worldwide have pledged to align their operations with the Paris climate deal. This month, New York State, with a US$226 billion financial portfolio, became the biggest pension fund anywhere to divest from fossil fuels. It should not come as a surprise that oil majors like BP and ExxonMobil have lost nearly half their market value this year.
Tim Buckley, IEEFA director of energy finance studies, said: “At the start of 2020, everyone talked about thermal coal becoming unbankable. At the end of the year, that is almost a given now. Financial markets are acknowledging that the capital flight from fossil fuels is accelerating, and its broadening into oil and gas will be the next big thing.”
2. Will Big Tech become the new Big Oil?
Not that long ago, oil powers ruled the economy and influenced world events.
But waning demand for fossil fuels in recent years and the crushing blow of the pandemic are some of the sweeping changes that have been ushering out the age of Big Oil, and heralding the Big Tech era.
The Social Dilemma is a 2020 American documentary from Netflix that portrays the rise of social media and how it can inflict damage to society. Image: The Social Dilemma Facebook page
“With the dominance of big tech players like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and rise of China-based tech companies, the privacy side of security will be put into focus in the coming year,” said Thomas Milburn, director of United Kingdom-based sustainability consultancy Corporate Citizenship.
Deep tech’s ability to automatically create fake news, the impact of social media on young people, and the overuse of tech devices are particularly worrying, said Milburn.
Just this week, Facebook declared it is shifting its privacy policy for UK users from stricter European Union protections to US regulations, stoking fears that British users will be subject to less stringent data privacy and be more easily subjected to surveillance by US intelligence agencies or data requests from law enforcement.
There has been rising concern about ethics and how tech should be used for the good and well-being of humanity, and more regulation is needed in the coming year, Milburn said.
3. More ‘green-collar’ workers for the post-Covid economy
Although many governments fell short of using stimulus dollars for a green recovery from Covid-19, there have been signs of a transition to green jobs.
As part of its Green New Deal unveiled in May, South Korea will establish a Regional Energy Transition Centre to support workers as they switch to more sustainable sectors. An initial parliamentary proposal calls for an investment of US$10.5 billion over the next two years, with the focus on the creation of 133,000 jobs. The plan includes remodelling public buildings, creating urban forests, recycling, establishing a foundation for new and renewable energy, and creating low-carbon industrial complexes to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Singapore is also trying to develop jobs in the field of sustainability. Its sustainability and environment minister Grace Fu said in August that climate scientists, engineers, technicians and food scientists will be needed as the city-state increases its capabilities in climate mitigation and adaptation.
Elsewhere in the world, the United Kingdom pledged to invest over US$5 billion in creating 250,000 new green jobs as part of its net-zero plan.
4. A more climate-conscious Belt and Road Initiative
This year, China pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060, bringing the world closer to its goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius. But if the world’s biggest emitter keeps driving up emissions through its activities overseas even as it shrinks its carbon footprint at home, the nation wouldn’t exactly present itself as a shining model at next year’s climate negotiations in Glasgow.
Once the pandemic is under control, China is expected to revive its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive infrastructure project spreading across nearly 70 countries from Asia to Europe. Following recent warnings that the initiative could lead to 3 degrees Celsius of warming, the greening of projects launched under the scheme will be a key theme in 2021.
As energy security becomes more important, why would you build power plants that burn imported fossil fuels when there are plenty of cheap local wind and solar resources available?
Tim Buckley, director, energy finance studies, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis
There are signs that China’s activities beyond its borders are already changing. In Myanmar, for instance, Chinese companies dominated the nation’s first solar auction. In Egypt, a Chinese-backed coal power plant—the second-largest on the planet—was shelved indefinitely last April, three months after a Chinese corporation clinched a contract to build a 500-megawatt solar facility in the country. In November, a Chinese bank pulled out of a proposed coal project in Kenya, casting doubts on the venture’s viability.
“China’s ambitions to go global will resume after the pandemic,” said IEEFA’s Buckley. “But the BRI has been tarnished, so Beijing will need to make it friendlier towards recipient countries. And as energy security becomes more important, why would you build power plants that burn imported fossil fuels when there are plenty of cheap local wind and solar resources available?”
5. Work from home is here to stay
The coronavirus pandemic forced many firms to adopt flexible and remote working arrangements earlier this year. Having invested in remote work tools, many companies in insurance, financial services, technology, and media may not return to the old way of working anytime soon, even when a vaccine makes sending employees back to offices less risky.
Memes on social media reflected the new reality of transformed workplaces and confinement to one’s homes.
More corporate leaders have realised that working from home works, and employees won’t be itching to leave the comfort of their homes and spend hours on crowded trains and buses each day. What will this mean for the transport and buildings sectors?
Many offices could be converted to other uses in the coming years as governments seek to address housing shortages, while shared spaces and meeting rooms will replace the traditional workplace. Fewer long commutes also mean a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
From cost-efficiency to sustainable procurement methods, healthcare is increasingly leading the way towards sustainability.
Paeng Lopez, sustainable health in procurement project coordinator, Health Care Without Harm
6. Has sustainable healthcare’s time finally arrived?
The healthcare sector is showing signs of greater eco-consciousness.
“From cost-efficiency to sustainable procurement methods, healthcare is increasingly leading the way towards sustainability. This is the kind of meaningful participation to address global problems that will go viral in 2021 and beyond,” said Paeng Lopez of Health Care Without Harm, a group which works to reduce the environmental footprint of healthcare worldwide.
Lopez said there has been a rise in healthcare facilities with solar rooftops. Healthcare facilities are some of the largest energy consumers, yet more than one billion people worldwide do not have access to health facilities with a reliable power supply, putting basic care at risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Lopez noted that hospitals will also introduce more solutions to manage and limit medical waste, which is estimated to have added 1,000 tonnes of litter per day in Southeast Asia.
Even small health facilities in the region are adopting scalable waste reduction solutions, he said.
St Paul’s Hospital in Ilo-Ilo, Philippines is manufacturing its own reusable personal protective equipment to minimise waste, while Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital in Taiwan has designed a sealed barrier that features a pair of rubber gloves, allowing health care workers to safely perform countless nasal swab tests with less single-use equipment, as recommended by the WHO.
A clinician in Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital in Taiwan conducts a nasal swab using a low cost medical device that hospital officials say has reduced waste by 45 to 59 per cent per testing. Image: Health Care Without Harm
7. The great tourism reset
Covid-19 has upended travel and tourism this year, costing the industry more than 120 million jobs, according to some estimates. The silver lining is that it has given popular destinations a much-needed breather.
As countries seek to restart travel in 2021, tourism operators must heed lessons from the crisis and promote environmental and business resilience, as well as biodiversity conservation. The concept of regenerative tourism is growing.
Communities traditionally overrun by visitors can embrace local food sources, renewables, clean transport, green buildings, and better waste management, while travellers must be more mindful of their impact on local culture and the environment. This could mean paying a premium for a more responsible experience.
With the pandemic still raging across the globe, businesses will need to reopen responsibly. This could mean sticking to “travel bubbles” where visitors follow pre-determined itineraries and follow strict health protocols to prevent another wave of infections.
China and Korea have put in place the first travel bubble in the Asia Pacific region. Singapore, whose travel bubble with Hong Kong is postponed, has unilaterally opened up to Australia, Brunei, mainland China, New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan. Australia and New Zealand have announced a quarantine-free travel bubble agreement to start in the first quarter of 2021.
8. Will deep-sea miners wreck the planet’s last frontier?
Needed for solar panels and batteries, precious metals such as cobalt, nickel, and copper are essential for a low-carbon future. Some mining firms are arguing that this justifies the environmental damage caused by extractive activities.
One place they have been eyeing is the ocean floor, and there are negotiations underway that could pave the way for just that. As early as 2021, the International Seabed Authority could greenlight ocean mining in international waters.
But environmentalists have warned that mining of the deep sea could destroy entire habitats. They maintain that there are sufficient resources on land, especially as companies explore ways to recover metals from clean energy waste streams, reducing the need for raw materials.
The coming year will tell whether miners will get their way, or whether green groups can dissuade nations from exploiting one of nature’s last frontiers.
