Part 4: Resisting Renewables — How renewables are driving change in our transport networks
In the classic parable “I, Pencil”, Leonard E. Read illustrates the necessity of transportation to the functioning of a global economy by tracing the journey of producing a pencil. As Read explains, cedar from Oregon must be transported to a mill in San Leandro, graphite must be sourced from Ceylon in Sri Lanka which is then transported to Mississipi where it is mixed with clay from a nearby river and so on until all of these ingredients are put together to produce what is a relatively simple item.
Despite the explanatory elegance of Read’s story, what is left out is the parallel tale of emissions linked to globalised economic activity. When considering production from an emissions perspective, all of a sudden “I, Pencil” becomes a tale of the carbon released into the atmosphere by deforestation in Oregon, by burning fuel to power the mill in San Leandro, by burning diesel to ship graphite from Sri Lanka across the Atlantic ocean to Mississippi. Telling this story from an emissions perspective highlights the decarbonisation of the transport sector as one of the greatest challenges for policymakers as a part of a global effort to reduce emissions.
“Many components of wind turbines and solar panels are manufactured in China and transported to the U.S. in ships that burn heavy fuel oil or diesel.”
On the cutting edge of renewable innovation lies the transportation sector, due both to the industry’s high level of technical complexity as well as the substantial economic payoffs for companies willing to take risks in this space. The viability of electric vehicles (EVs) for domestic travel is undisputed at this stage, as AEMO predicts that EVs will boast an impressive 61.5% share of all new vehicles sales by 2050.¹ In response to these improvements in EV prospects, logistics companies like DHL and Amazon are currently introducing EVs to their fleets.²
The environmental impact of a transition to EVs is also of impressive magnitude. Though it is often argued that EVs don’t produce a positive environmental impact due to the non-renewable sources of power which charge EV batteries, this is shown to be demonstrably false by the available data.
Whilst EV’s are not 100% renewable yet, this does not imply that they do not offer emissions savings. Australia’s energy mix as of 2018 included 21% renewable energy, meaning that EVs powered by the grid will emit that amount less CO2 than a standard vehicle.³ Although 21% may not seem like a great deal of savings, in reality the emissions savings are fairly rapid to materialise, and will only improve in future as the Australian energy sector continues to move towards renewable power.
In terms of CO2 emissions, it takes only two years for an EV powered by just a 10% renewable energy grid (half as much as Australia’s grid on average) to overtake a brand new Toyota Camry in terms of emissions savings, and just five years to overtake a used one (assuming the used car has a present construction emission level of zero).⁴ These rapid emissions savings on an investment in EV demonstrate their viability as an environmentally viable alternative to fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
Adopting EVs in a consumer capacity represent no serious transitional challenges at an operational level either, as EVs operate nearly identically to fossil fuel-powered vehicles. What investors are still waiting for in this space is a reduction in battery cost, which is expected to fall below the cost of an internal combustion engine within the next few years.⁵ As far as domestic travel is concerned, EV adoption is an inevitability.
International transportation
At an international level, however, new issues arise as balancing the weight-output ratio of new fuel sources presents a challenge which is yet to find a solution. The shipping industry, for instance, relies on marine diesel oil (MDO), a fossil fuel, for power which it is struggling to move away from at the moment.
As The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported in 2015, MDO emissions present a serious environmental hazard as the shipping industry accounted for 2.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions between 2007 and 2012.⁶ Solutions to this problem have been proposed in the past; however each of the proposed alternative fuel sources have run into one or more significant problems that have hindered their development.
Of all solutions to the international transport problem that have been presented thus far, biodiesel is the one that has garnered the most support due to its potential emissions savings and pre-established manufacturing infrastructure. The issue with biodiesel and other biofuels, however, remains the carbon emissions associated with production. As John DeCicco controversially found in 2016, there is doubt as to whether the industry-standard lifecycle analysis (LCA) of carbon emissions is a reliable metric for measuring environmental impact in this case.⁷
Although biofuels emit roughly the same amount of carbon as fossil fuels when burned, they are still considered more environmentally friendly due to their production operating as a carbon sink. Put simply, this is because the variety of plants that biofuels are made of actually absorb carbon from the atmosphere in order to grow which is assumed to cancel out the carbon emissions of biofuels under LCA methodology.
What DeCicco found instead is that by looking at crop data collected by the US Department of Agriculture between 2005–2013 it appears that the crops used for biofuel do not actually offset the carbon emissions of biofuel usage as LCA modeling assumes.⁸ Instead DeCicco found that biofuel usage in the U.S. during this time period produced a net increase rather than a net decrease in carbon emissions.
Although there is still a debate as to whether DeCicco’s critique of LCA is valid, if the conclusions of his study are verified this would almost certainly rule out biofuels as an environmentally-friendly resource. For the shipping industry this would subsequently mean that ships and aircraft would have to undergo a more substantial redesign to accomodate an entirely new fueling method which is likely to take a significant period of time to develop.
Luckily, there are innovations with more promise to be 100% emissions free already in development. The Yara Birkeland ship from Norway, for example, which is due to launch within the next year or so is a completely autonomous and electric-powered ship which is expected to replace up to 40,000 truck journeys each year.⁹ Though this amount is significant, persistent issues with electric-powered shipping stem from their minimal range. Current generation batteries simply weigh too much and take up too much space on a ship for long-distance shipping to be made possible.¹⁰
Similarly to the shipping industry, finding a viable alternative fuel source for aeroplanes is an ongoing challenge as part of the global quest to reduce overall fossil fuel consumption in shipping industries. As a result, carbon-free hydrogen powered aeroplanes such as those designed by ZeroAvia are currently only suitable for short regional trips and with a much smaller seating capacity.¹¹
Until the issues with long-range shipping can be resolved, the inability to transition to renewable power sources within the transportation industry present a challenging threat to global emissions targets. If such a transition cannot take place we will be forced to make a disastrous choice between the collapse of globalised economic systems and the collapse of our ecosystem. As such, it is imperative that governments take bold action in this space to address the glaring incompatibility of long-distance shipping and renewable power.
[1] AEMO, Electric Vehicles Insights, (Canberra: Energeia, 2017), 2.
[2] Jake Richardson, “Amazon, IKEA, AT&T, DHL & Others Join Electric Vehicle Alliance,” January 28, 2020. Accessed, February 24, 2020. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/28/amazon-ikea-att-dhl-others-join-electric-vehicle-alliance/.
[3] Clean Energy Council, Clean Energy Australia Report 2019 (Canberra: AGPS, 2019), 6.
[4] Two Bit da Vinci, “Driving an Electric Car is better for the Environment: Here’s Why,” December 13, 2018. Accessed January 8, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwxmIYGpbn4.
[5] Veronika Henze, “Battery Pack Prices Fall As Market Ramps Up With Market Average At $156/kWh In 2019,” December 3, 2019. Accessed January 19, 2020. https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/.
[6] IRENA, Renewable Energy Options for Shipping, (Suva: IRENA, 2015).
[7] John DeCicco, “Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use,” Climatic Change 138, 667–680 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4.
[8] Ibid,.
[9] The Beam, “The World’s First Electric Autonomous Container Ship to set Sail in Norway,” August 23, 2018. Accessed February 24, 2020. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/the-worlds-first-electric-autonomous-container-ship-to-set-sail-in-norway/
[10] Denis Balibouse, “Climate explained: why don’t we have electric aircraft?” September 20, 2019. Accessed February 24, 2020. https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-dont-we-have-electric-aircraft-123910.
[11] Andrew Hawkins, “This company wants to fill the skies with hydrogen-powered planes by 2022,” August 14, 2019. Accessed February 24, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20804257/zeroavia-hydrogen-airplane-electric-flight.
