Electric cars are only as clean as the grid they plug into, and the emissions from your electric vehicle use will continue to decrease over the years you’re in use because of the grid. keep getting cleaner.
It’s a point we stress often, and following Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, ensuring a cleaner grid over time, everywhere, is no longer an foregone conclusion. That’s because based on this ruling, it’s very likely that electric vehicles in some areas of the US will deliver heavier carbon emissions than they can, for years to come.
Obama era Clean electricity planin the center of West Virginia et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, was temporarily blocked in the courts and never really became the rule. That could be the most effective mechanism ever, not only to control and reduce carbon emissions from power generation, but also to clean up the entire US grid, in a deep way. sharp.
Coal power plant in China
Ironically, it’s a free market approach. Simply put, it will require a limited and commercial market for carbon pollution – meaning it will incentivize service companies to convert power generation to renewable energy such as wind and solar, and stay away from coal or natural gas. They can still use combustion media, but it will get more and more expensive over time.
But the Supreme Court’s problem with the Clean Power Plan lies in how it works. It combines emissions from power plants and utilities in the states into a single aggregate. Instead, a majority of the judges ruled that each power plant must apply the same rules, and the program falls outside the EPA’s regulatory role.
What plays out could be a set of general limiting rules — where the EPA may ultimately require specific requirements about what technologies work or don’t for transformational goals. climate and reduce CO2.
The verdict, as some have been quick to point out – against confusing initial headlines that may have been written in anticipation of what some people earlier in the week conjectured would happen – has no specific restrictions EPA’s mandate to combat climate change.
As a result, facilities that deal with coal pollution, or are almost entirely dependent on natural gas, can continue to do so for a longer period of time, without the financial pressure to decommissioning those coal plants if they meet the minimum emission requirements.
Union of scientists interested in equivalent MPG gasoline for electric vehicles, 2021
What’s more, there’s not much guarantee that a high tide will lift it all — climatically speaking. Periodic country maps released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, effective calculation miles per gallon for your EV on a carbon basis, may become even more diverse, depending on the energy choices of each particular local or regional facility.
As utility companies have made a long-term commitment to switch to renewable energy, those electric vehicles will continue to be cleaner; Elsewhere, the change won’t happen so quickly. It is too early to delve into what this might mean for individual utilities, but beyond pressure from bidders, companies and regional politics, a large amount of urgency may have been lifted.
As we reported last year, citing UCS data, Ford F-150 Lightning have good wheels carbon emissions of gasoline cars 85 mpgand for more than 70% of the US population, driving a Lightning will produce less than half the global warming emissions of a gasoline-powered model. According to UCS, as of 2021, 97% live in an area where EV driving produces less emissions than a 50 mpg petrol vehicle.
2022 Ford F-150 Lightning
The ruling also contradicts a range of federal spending — such as bipartisan infrastructure bill which specifies $65 billion to upgrade the grid ahead of a push into renewables and will send $7.5 billion towards the rollout of electric vehicle charging stations.
The Sierra Club called the ruling “deeply disappointing and dangerous,” noting that it “effectively removed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most effective tool for pollution reduction.” climate pollution from existing fossil fuel-burning power plants”.
The EPA also has the power to regulate what is called a pollutant by criteria — carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide — and it could potentially tighten those standards. to pass coal mills and make them high cost.
Setting per-source carbon emissions limits will be far more difficult than anything market-based — and, as some have pointed out, more expensive for taxpayers — and will be more challenging. little awareness in the process.
Power plant outside Ithaca, New York
But support is there from the American public. The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) pointed out a June 2022 study from NPR, the Robert Wood Foundation and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, noting that nearly eight in 10 Americans support such limits on coal and gas power plants.
As a variety of environmental organizations have emphasized in their responses to the ruling, clean energy and climate legislation may be the most effective remedy.
UCS President Johanna Chao Kreilick said: “Parliament must urgently enact strong and fair climate and clean energy legislation. “As the rising toll borne by communities across the country and around the world makes it clear, climate change is here today, and there is no time to waste.”
