Oakland (Special for ZennieReport.com) – There is a race to electrify everything, call it “Widespread Electrification”. It started with the first major change – my toothbrush. Now it’s my car and everything else. But there are some problems I am having with this – and it’s not just range anxiety.
From a system dynamics perspective, our surge in electricity use is creating pollution that few people appreciate. That’s because it is happening in lower income, disadvantaged communities.
The American public, politicians and the news media are missing the “dirty secret” of this strategy.
We all want power from solar or wind or other green sources to help with climate change. But that is still a long way off. You don’t see the herds of offshore windmills or fields of solar panels we need to meet supply.
The “dirty secret” is that the extra power we are using – and going to use as we put more electric cars and electric trucks on the road as part of – is supplied by the same high-emitting energy sources most responsible for climate change.
Worse, the increase in demand along with bad weather events and fires has prompted the need for more backup power – and this is coming from diesel burning and smog emitting power generators. There has been a dramatic rise in diesel generators in the San Francisco Bay Area in the past five years. These diesels generators are operating in places closest to low-income neighborhoods.
We are using more electricity from coal and diesel power generators than ever before. 60 percent of all U.S. electricity is generated by fossil fuels. This is causing our carbon emissions and air pollution to get worse. The increased air pollution is affecting underserved communities more than affluent ones.
We are heading in the wrong direction despite being told we are on the right path.
This is particularly true in places that have passed legislation which, in-tandem with widespread electrification mandates, also exempt the dirtiest power plants and diesel, and ban newer, cleaner forms of on-site electricity generation like fuel cells and microgrids simply because they don’t run on renewables.
Our statewide, widespread electrification induced demand has already led to the re-starting of three natural gas power plants in California that were slated to close in 2020. I’m told we also now have more power being generated by diesel than nuclear in our state.
The ugly truth, or “dirty secret,” is that, until our grid is powered by renewables, “surging” widespread electrification efforts are simply transferring emissions from the transportation and building sectors to the energy sector.
The dirtiest, highest-emitting power plants are re-starting and working overtime. Worse yet, this drives up air pollution in and around America’s most marginalized communities where legacy fossil fueled power plants are primarily located.
This must change, and the solution is rather simple.
The California Public Utilities Board needs to adjust its thinking. We need to diversify our electricity generation options. This would mean policies that encourage lower emitting, distributed power options – microgrids and fuel cells, for example – to help phase out dirty electricity.
We need an open discussion about our “dirty secret” and we need those options now.