The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [31]
It is rapidly becoming obvious that plug-in electric cars will be the great bridging technology between the cars of today and the cars of a hydrogen fuel-cell economy later this century (should there be one114). Plug-ins differ from conventional cars and hybrids (like the Toyota Prius, first sold in Japan in 1997) because they are powered mainly or exclusively from the electric grid, not by gasoline. And because plug-ins emit very little tailpipe exhaust (zero for fully electric cars with no hybrid conventional motor), that means urban air quality is about to become cleaner.
One of the biggest reasons to be happy about the phase-in of plug-in electric cars has less to with solving climate change or reducing dependency on foreign oil, and more to do with quality of life for all those new city people. Take, for example, my home. It’s only a thousand square feet in size, with one bedroom and one bath, but my wife and I love it. It clings to the Hollywood Hills, high above everything, with sweeping views of the downtown Los Angeles skyline and beyond. Every morning one of the first things I do is step out on the deck to check out the view. It’s usually crummy, the skyscrapers and distant mountains obscured by the orange-stained smog of ten million belching tailpipes. But on good days, when winds clear out the fumes, we win a breathtaking vista spanning over fifty miles, from blue ocean in the west to snow-covered peaks in the east. It’s stunning, and I’m looking forward to those rare views becoming downright ordinary over the next forty years. The public health benefits of this are obvious. Today, as a resident of Los Angeles, I suffer a 25%-30% higher chance of dying from a respiratory disease than my parents, who live on the Great Plains.115
This is not to suggest that electric cars are environmentally benign, because they aren’t. All of that new electricity must come from somewhere, and for the foreseeable future it will mostly come from power plants burning coal and natural gas. And while the vehicles themselves emit virtually no pollution, these power plants do. 116 Producing millions of electric batteries also requires mining huge volumes of nickel, lithium, and cobalt. There are many technology hurdles remaining with battery lifetime, disposal, and price. Mileage rates are improving (the Chevrolet Volt goes 40 miles, the Tesla 244 miles as of 2010) but still well below the range of a conventional car. Recharging takes several hours unless a system of battery-exchange service stations can be set up. For these reasons and others most first-generation plug-in electrics will likely be hybrids, with a small gasoline or diesel motor that kicks in when the battery range is exceeded. To the extent that they are driven beyond this range, cars will continue to emit pollution and greenhouse gas from their tailpipes.
There is also the “liquid-fuels” problem: Not all transport can be electrified. There is no foreseeable battery on the horizon that will power airplanes, helicopters, freight ships, long-haul trucks, and emergency generators. These all require the power, extended range, or portability offered by liquid fuels. For these forms of transport, gasoline, diesel, ethanol, biodiesel, liquefied natural gas, or coal-derived syngas will be necessary for decades. However, electrification of the passenger vehicle fleet will help ensure adequate supplies of these liquid fuels. And perhaps one day, our descendants will be grateful that we left them enough oil to still make plastic affordable.
So peering forward to 2050, we find a world more heavily electrified than today, and an assortment of strange new liquid fuels. Where will