This quote surfaces in my memory: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” That’s what V.I. Lenin said in 1920, three years after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/electrification-campaign/communism-is-soviet-power-electrification-of-the-whole-country/
It echoes in my mind now that electrification has become a major priority of the U.S. (we can do without the communism).
Apart from federal initiatives (mentioned in President Biden’s State of the Union address on February 7), states are taking electrification into their own hands. California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Minnesota, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, now have laws that require an ultimate transition to 100 percent carbon-free or renewable electricity.
Let us focus on the trucking industry. “The electrification of the trucking sector is ramping up. The industry is investing in bringing electric vehicles (EVs) to the sector as it aims to accelerate the market for zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” says Thomas Insights, a website covering the manufacturing industry. Factors Impacting the Electrification of the U.S. Trucking Fleet (thomasnet.com)
California’s Advanced Clean Truck act (ACT), for example, requires that starting in 2024, fleets with 100 or more trucks ensure that “they will eventually transition to zero-emission electric cars,” according to Thomas Insights.
Yet all this talk of EVs and charging stations seems to sideline the central issue of this great electrification drive: the power grid. Some estimates say that national energy capacity will have to double by 2050 if two-thirds of the light duty vehicle fleet are electrified. Slow start for US electric vehicles, but times are changing | Article | ING Think Note: light-duty vehicle fleet.
Here’s one optimistic take on the issue, from U.S. News & World Report: Can the Nation’s Electrical Grid Support Electric Cars? | U.S. News (usnews.com)
“Most industry experts agree that the nation’s electrical grid is up to the task of supporting EVs,” says the article.
The Wall Street Journal, that summit of all business wisdom and knowledge, is optimistic too: Can the Power Grid Handle a Wave of New Electric Vehicles? – WSJ.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said that it expected 46.1 million gigawatts to be added to the nation’s power grid in 2022, with 46 percent coming from solar and another 17 percent from wind. U.S. Energy Information Administration – EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis
I fervently hope this will all go well. Yet my mind drifts back to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the chief power supplier to Northern California.
For decades, PG&E was beloved by old-folks investors for its regular and generous dividends. Unfortunately, these dividends came from money the utility should have spent upgrading their infrastructure.
The company was rather embarrassed when this neglect caused the largest and deadliest wildfire in the state’s history—the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the unfortunately named community of Paradise. PG&E knew old power line parts had ‘severe wear’ | abc10.com
PG&E did not have carte blanche. State regulators were supposed to oversee it to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen, but they didn’t, and it did.
I appreciate the environmental reasoning for moving from carbon-based fuels to electricity. I just hope that this massive move is managed with enough wisdom and forethought to make sure that our energy supplies are more, not less, secure—and that those who inherit them won’t neglect them.
So how much do I trust the utilities?
