“Fair Energy Futures” — what is this about?
Professor Robert Kelsall, an engineer from the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds, explains the unexpected connection between his work and fair energy futures, and how he came to be an active member of this new research community.
Last autumn I went on sabbatical, my first ever in 25+ years!
“I’ll focus on electric vehicles (EVs)” I said to myself, a highly topical field with plenty of interest to an engineer, alongside new motor technologies, electronic systems, and battery materials — “great!”.
EV battery technology has improved remarkably over the last few years, with several models offering well over 300 miles of driving range. Even so, this adds up to a significant mass of batteries in every car. Scale this up to an eventual ~40 million cars in the UK, and over 1 billion vehicles worldwide, and that represents a vast battery manufacturing industry. A vast battery manufacturing industry in turn represents a vast battery materials extraction industry on a scale which doesn’t exist right now.
Who bears the environmental burden of this? How do they benefit?
Is that fair? And if not, what would a fair solution look like?
OK, those were not questions I was expecting within an engineering research programme!
The push to EVs is motivated primarily by reduction of CO2 emissions via elimination of petrol/diesel engines. But the quid pro quo, of course, is a significant increase in electricity demand. So, we are back where we started unless that demand is met largely by ‘renewable’ generation, i.e. a lot of solar and wind farms. Or, maybe it is OK to compensate for extra non-renewable generation by using carbon capture and storage?
Is that a good solution? Who pays for it?
Is that fair?
Despite the increased battery capacities, concern over how far an EV can travel before needing a change — known as “range anxiety” — is still prominent. Thus, provision of charging infrastructure is a crucial issue. Central government is providing a lot of cash for public charging, but deliberately not enough: this is to be a public-private enterprise programme. The responsibility for commissioning public charging infrastructure has been delegated to local councils, but they don’t own the roads, and they don’t own the electricity infrastructure on which charging depends.
So what determines where charging points are located? The answer in practice is probably some happy coincidence of pro-active council transport leads, adequate pre-existing electricity supply, high local EV ownership and/or EV ‘footfall’ to provide profitability for private investors.
Is that fair?
If you own a house with a private driveway, you can install your own EV charger and charge at a discounted overnight tariff, far cheaper than the public charging prices.
Is THAT fair?
And, whilst you can pick up a serviceable petrol/diesel car for a few hundred pounds, an EV will be completely unaffordable to millions of people until a mature second hand market exists. Net Zero mobility doesn’t come cheaply (unless you have a bus pass!). So a substantial sector of society will be stranded in the moral low-ground of polluting, climate-warming transport?
Is THAT FAIR?
At this point, my simple, solution-focussed engineer’s head was beginning to explode so when the opportunity arose to join the Fair Energy Futures team and discuss these, and many more related dilemmas, with researchers who spend their careers analysing this stuff, I jumped at the chance!
Visit the Fair Energy Futures website for more information, and follow us on X @EnergyLeeds #FairEnergyFutures
