New York has ambitious plans for transitioning from gasoline to electric cars. The state will ban the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles, beginning in 2035. New York city is expected to have 2 million electric vehicles on its roads by 2040.
While electric vehicles sound climate friendly, they won’t help the environment until fossil fuels no longer produce the electricity. Wind and solar alone, however, will have a hard time meeting demand. Wind is only 3% of New York’s current energy output. Planned offshore windfarms could produce 20-30 gigawatts of energy (comparable to the 26 GW fossil fuel plants produced in 2020), but the state would only receive 9 GW of this. In addition, managing the flow of electricity is problematic. In 2019, upstate wind power lulled for eight hours-or-more 74 times; while for half the year, the transmission line was so full that no more energy could be transmitted. Solar doesn’t help much either—while it is growing in the South and Southwest, terrain and climate do not favor it in the Northeast. On top of this, neither the state’s nor even the nation’s power grid is able to handle a conversion to electric vehicles. By one estimate, the US will need to invest $125B into its power grid to handle electric vehicles (the recent infrastructure bill included about $5B).
Shifting away from fossil fuels is inevitable—it is a worldwide trend. However, politicians seem to have a pollyannish view of what it will take to do this. Billions of dollars of investment will be needed to make this work. This investment needs to begin now to meet the energy demand for even a decade away. Avoiding the issue could stymie the economy and productivity of the nation.
In the meantime, young entrepreneurs are moving forward. The country’s largest recharging station opened in Brooklyn recently, capable of recharging 50 cars at a time. While this is pittance of what will be needed to make the transition, it is a start. Let’s just hope the state and the nation can carry it the rest of the way.
Source: Will Englund, “Lost in Transmission,” Washington Post, 17 October 2021, A1; see also
Photo: Revel
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