WORLDFIRE - Chapter 10, Part III

Imagine a Green Industrial Revolution

When Kevin arrived the next morning, I could not believe my eyes. I had expected something small like my Prius. What pulled up instead looked more like a futuristic silver DeLorean, complete with gull wings. Kevin was driving “Seven,” the electric car he and six other Illuminati Motor Works team members had spent three years building to compete for a $5 million prize at the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition. Their homemade, 4-seat, 3,000-pound car, which gets 200 miles on a single charge, had achieved the equivalent of 182 miles per gallon on a 134-mile run at Michigan International Speedway. German ingenuity may have produced the “Lamborghini” of bikes I was riding, but American know-how had produced the “DeLorean” of electric cars. After loading the trike onto Kevin’s homemade trailer and picking up another team member, we hit the road for Champaign-Urbana. Anyone who thinks electric cars lack for power needs to ride in one. As if to demonstrate the power of “Seven,” Kevin peeled rubber as we headed off. By successfully transporting three adults and a rocket trike on a trailer 100 miles from Springfield to Champaign on a single charge, we believe we set a world record.

In Champaign, we met up with Matt, who had arranged for our electric vehicles to be displayed at the University of Illinois as part of Sustainability Week. Matt drove me to campus in his two-seated TWIKE. One of the electric-assist bikes I had considered using for my journey, it would not have been a bad choice. I later got to take it for a solo spin. Talk about fun. Drive one yourself and you may never go back to a car. I would best describe a TWIKE as part car, part bike. Like the rocket trike, it has three wheels, bike pedals, a chain, a joystick for steering, a windshield, an outer shell, a detachable ragtop, and an electric-assist motor. Here’s how it differs: it’s twice as big, sits higher, seats two people, has a control panel, regenerative brakes, and windshield wipers, and is too heavy to pick up by yourself. It also has a stronger electric motor, so it’s faster (Matt has gotten his up to nearly 60 mph). But the biggest difference is this: in a TWIKE, the electric motor does most of the work, but you pedal if you want some exercise. In the rocket trike, your legs do most of the work, with the electric motor there to assist. Personally, I like them both.

I realize most Americans would not trade in their gas-powered car for a rocket trike, or even a TWIKE. But I think a lot of people would make the trade for an electric car. The fact that transportation is our nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions makes electrifying the vehicle fleet mission critical to restoring a safe climate. Imagine if some of those fossil fuel subsidies propping up the dinosaur economy were redirected to those who could really use it. California has an innovative Clean Cars 4 All program that gives a low-income resident living in a community with poor air quality up to $9,500 to upgrade their gas guzzler to a new or used electric vehicle (EV), or up to $7,500 to access public transit and other alternative mobility options. Imagine a similar program being instituted nationally. But it is not enough to shift our existing gas- and diesel-powered vehicle fleet to electric if the electricity grid is not renewable. When I recharged my rocket trike battery, few of those electrons were from renewable energy sources. In the future, they all need to be. But the Ride for Renewables was not about carbon purity. It was about showing that another way is possible. It was about building a bridge to a 100% renewable America.

In his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore wrote: “Consider that the United States spends tens of billions of dollars on frenzied programs to upgrade and improve the technology of bombers and fighter planes to counter an increasingly remote threat to our national security, but we are content to see hundreds of millions of automobiles using an old technological approach not radically different from the one first used decades ago in the Model A Ford” that is “posing a mortal threat” even “more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever likely to confront.” Gore was referring to the inefficient technology of internal combustion engines, which depend on continuous fossil fuel extraction and produce more heat than energy. Gas-powered cars convert only 12%-30% of the energy stored in gasoline to powering the wheels, whereas all-electric vehicles convert nearly 80% of stored energy to powering the wheels. The “mortal threat” of those antiquated engines is carbon dioxide pollution. The lifecycle emissions of today’s electric vehicles is already less than half that of conventional vehicles and will shrink even further as more renewables are deployed to charge them. So let’s see. Gore proposed as part of a Global Marshall Plan a program to completely eliminate the internal combustion engine over a 25-year period. Gore wrote his book in 1992. Those 25 years came and went in 2017 and we had done nothing along those lines. Only with the passage of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has work even begun on a national network of electric vehicle charging stations. It is time for a crash U.S. program to make this transition in less than a decade.

To be clear, while electric vehicles (EVs) emit zero tailpipe emissions, the process of manufacturing EVs does produce carbon emissions, as does the electricity used to recharge their batteries (if that electricity doesn’t come from renewables). Even still, as reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2022: “Driving the average EV in the United States produces global warming emissions equivalent to those emitted by a gasoline car getting 91 miles per gallon.” Of course, the more renewables we deploy, the cleaner EVs will run and the cleaner the manufacturing process will be. A 2022 American Lung Association report further found that “a national shift to 100 percent sales of zero-emission passenger vehicles (by 2035) and medium- and heavy-duty trucks (by 2040), coupled with renewable electricity would generate over $1.2 trillion in public health benefits between 2020 and 2050. These benefits would take the form of avoiding up to 110,000 premature deaths, along with nearly 3 million asthma attacks and over 13 million workdays lost due to cleaner air.” It also found “that the shift to zero emission transportation and electricity generation in the United States will yield avoided global climate damages over $1.7 trillion.” What’s not to like about any of that?

Consider some of the advantages of owning an electric car. Huge savings in fuel costs. No more oil changes. Fewer trips to the mechanic (electric cars have very few moving parts). Better investment (electric cars last twice as long as gas-powered cars). Better health (I don’t know too many people who enjoy breathing in gasoline vapors or noxious tailpipe fumes). Faster acceleration. And if powered by renewables, zero greenhouse gas emissions. Then there is the enticing prospect of actually getting paid to send the energy stored in your car battery back into the electricity grid. Another oft ignored upside to electric vehicles is less noise pollution. In addition to a quieter ride, who among us wouldn’t appreciate quieter cities? Instead of being daily bombarded with the roar of motors and mufflers, we could once again hear the singing of songbirds and maybe even our own thoughts.

Big Oil will resist, but the smarter automakers can see where the winds are blowing. The electric vehicle revolution is inevitable. Among the car companies that are competitively positioning themselves to ride the coming green wave is Volvo. In 2021, the automaker vowed to produce only fully electric cars by 2030. That same year, General Motors announced it will produce an all-electric light-duty vehicle fleet by 2035 (GM could already be dominating the EV market if they hadn’t blown it by killing their own extremely popular EV1 electric car back in the 1990s). Even the U.S. Army has a goal of fielding an all-electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035 as part of the Army’s climate strategy.

The financial world can also see the handwriting on the wall. In 2019, one of the world’s largest banks produced a report for professional investors forecasting the “death toll for petrol.” Declaring that “the oil industry has never before in its history faced the kind of threat that renewable electricity in tandem with EVs poses to its business model,” the BNP Parabis analysis concluded that “the economics of oil for gasoline and diesel vehicles versus wind- and solar-powered EVs are now in relentless and irreversible decline, with far-reaching implications for both policymakers and the oil majors.” Much of the rest of the industrialized world is already making the shift from antiquated internal combustion engines to EVs. In the UK–which together with China, India, and France has announced its intention to phase out fossil fuel-burning cars–there are now more EV charging stations than gas stations due to the public’s growing appetite for the superior product. EV sales overtook gas and diesel vehicle sales in Norway in 2019. In 2020, California became the first state in the Union to commit to phasing out the sale of new internal combustion engine passenger cars and trucks by 2035. New York followed California’s lead in 2021 with a ban on the sale of new gas-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035.

The biggest current downside to owning an electric car is the upfront cost, which consumer and industry incentives can help offset in the short term, and economies of scale will resolve in the long term. Another current challenge, which is quickly changing, is battery range, but for the vast majority of in-town trips people make in their cars, range is not an issue. For long-distance trips, the long-standing roadblocks of charging availability and charging speed are coming down now that the U.S. has finally committed to fixing our crumbling infrastructure. It won’t take long for us to build a national vehicle-charging network powered by the wind and the sun. Imagine existing gas stations being converted to EV charging stations and how many good-paying jobs building this new infrastructure alone will create. Imagine charging stations being installed at workplaces and in multi-unit dwellings. Imagine being able to recharge your car from the comfort of your home while you sleep. Imagine never having to go to the gas station again.

Similar to solar PV panels, the cost of lithium-ion batteries, like the one strapped to the back of my rocket trike, has plunged by 97 percent in the past three decades. Critics correctly point out that raw materials for electric car batteries, like lithium, copper, cobalt, and nickel, are finite resources, the mining of which come with their own social and ecological costs. Lithium mining also requires lots of water. This underscores the imperative for robust industry-wide battery reuse and recycling protocols, along with the aggressive development of batteries that can be produced from materials other than lithium. Even though the amount of materials needing to be mined to transition off of fossil fuels is only a small fraction of the fossil fuels being mined today, we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the fossil fuel era as we make the pivot to electrification. Sustainability must be built into the electric vehicle supply chain through both government and private sector initiatives that ensure the responsible sourcing of materials. This applies to the solar and wind industries as well. But even with our best efforts, there is no getting around the fact that sometimes difficult trade-offs will have to be made. Someday we may develop an Earth-honoring way to mine for materials, but until that day comes, we have to be smarter about how and where we mine. Take deep seabed mining, for example. More than 5,000 new species of living beings were recently discovered in just one region of the seafloor being targeted for mining. Given its monumental risks, and how little we know about our oceans, deep seabed mining should not be allowed.

Climate breakdown is an unprecedented global challenge. Solving it will require unprecedented global cooperation. This means rethinking how mining is conducted and monitored globally. The closest thing I have seen to such an international effort is the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), a multi-stakeholder led organization dedicated to transforming the mining sector in a way that “respects the human rights and aspirations of affected communities, provides safe, healthy and supportive workplaces, minimizes harm to the environment, and leaves positive legacies.” What caught my attention about the group was some of their notable board members (e.g. Human Rights Watch and the United Steelworkers union). IRMA’s embrace of independent third-party verification is also a step in the right direction. Wherever mining does occur, it needs to be thoughtful mining, not mindless mining. By this, I mean conducting it in a way that seeks the informed consent of affected communities; honors human rights; minimizes ecological impacts; and ensures the rigorous remediation of mined sites.

In the U.S., we must also not allow a repeat of the mistakes of the past in the form of another gold rush that tramples the rights of sovereign tribal nations and that desecrates sacred sites. According to a well-publicized analysis by Morgan Stanley Capital International, a full “97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium and 68% of cobalt reserves and resources in the U.S. are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations.” This raises an obvious red flag. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) should be a prerequisite for any mining projects going forward that affect tribal communities (if only the FPIC provision of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples legally bound governments to responsibly behave). A Biden administration co-stewardship policy instituted with Native American tribes for federal lands on or adjacent to tribal lands could head off some of the conflicts that are bound to arise, but only if the policy is properly honored. Exhibit A in dishonoring that nation-to-nation trust responsibility is the shoddy treatment of Native American tribes fighting to protect ancestral lands and a sacred massacre site impacted by the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada.

Ultimately, the less mining we have to do, the better. If we’re smart about it, we can roll out the EV revolution in a way that reduces the need for lithium mining in the first place. But this requires having the right policies and public investments in place. In 2023, the climate justice think tank Climate and Community Project and the University of California, Davis, released a report titled, “Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining.” Their groundbreaking report found that reducing the car dependence of the U.S. transportation system and limiting the size of EV batteries could reduce lithium demand by between 18-66%. We limit battery size by prioritizing the production of smaller EVs and by providing alternatives to passenger cars, such as electric buses and electric bikes, which require less lithium per rider. We reduce car dependency by providing alternative transport options. Most people are pretty bonded to their cars, but if you asked them, I bet most would tell you the attachment is more to mobility on demand than actual love of the vehicle. There is a reason why innovative carshare programs like Boulder-based Colorado CarShare (founded by a friend of mine) are thriving. There is also a reason why rideshare businesses like Uber and Lyft are booming. But despite public desire for reliable and affordable mass transit, we have a conspicuous dearth of electrified public transportation options in the car-centric U.S. If more Americans had access to low-cost–ideally no-cost–public transit, more Americans would embrace its myriad conveniences. Most people I know who live in the District of Columbia are pretty attached to their Metro subway system. I would guess most who live in Boston and the Big Apple feel the same way about their train systems. Just as energy conservation and efficiency reduce the need to produce energy in the first place, so does more public transit reduce the need for cars and roads, paving the way for denser and more walkable, bikeable, and livable cities.

Again, the answer is not simply to replace conventional cars with electric ones. We need options that move us beyond personal vehicles. Options like electric trains and light rail. Options like electric passenger buses. As reported in Bloomberg in 2018: “China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017.” By 2019, the tally was China: 421,000. United States: 300. We need electric school buses (the production of which is getting a helpful boost from the Inflation Reduction Act), and not just to calm the climate. We need them to protect our children from the toxic diesel exhaust that accumulates inside those yellow school buses. We need electric motorcycles (in a nod to the inevitability of the EV revolution, Harley-Davidson rolled out its first electric motorcycle in 2019). We need more electric scooters, electric-assist bikes, and electric-assist trikes (like mine). We need electric freight trains. We need electric ferries. China has launched the world’s first electric cargo ship (ironically used to transport coal). There are even plans in the works for fleets of electric blimps and, if you can believe it, electric planes.

Thinking outside the box, imagine that if instead of producing vehicles the old way, U.S. automakers were charged with making EVs in a way where not just the batteries but all of the vehicle’s components could be replaced and recycled. Extending the concept further, imagine if automakers were also charged with dismantling, reusing, and recycling parts from their existing fossil fueled fleets during the EV transition. In addition to conserving precious resources, this would create countless auto industry jobs. If a fair way could be found to retroactively institute such a requirement, we could start with GM and Chrysler, which together received an $80 billion bailout from U.S. taxpayers in 2008-2009. We invested in them when they needed it most. Now it’s their turn to invest in us.

A circular recycling infrastructure for lithium, cobalt, and other spent battery materials would further reduce the need to mine for new materials. EV batteries can also be repurposed and reused. A 2021 University of California, Davis, study found that “[u]nder idealized conditions, retired batteries could supply 60% of cobalt, 53% of lithium, 57% of manganese, and 53% of nickel globally in 2040.” Imagine a higher tech version of the recycling infrastructure that currently exists for lead-acid car batteries. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law devotes significant resources towards boosting the development of U.S. best practices for battery recycling, but we need industrywide protocols for the safe recycling of lithium and rare earth materials. We also need government incentives to encourage manufacturers to improve their battery chemistries and designs, which can further minimize the need for mineral extraction. Entrepreneurs are already making advances in battery technology that go way beyond lithium and that don’t require materials like cobalt. Volkswagen, for instance, recently produced the world’s first electric car powered by a sodium-ion battery. Batteries are even being developed using seaweed and mushrooms!

My rocket trike was a huge hit at the University of Illinois sustainability fair and the related media interviews kept me hopping. This included one with a local ABC affiliate and another with a local CBS affiliate, followed by a great interview with a local NPR affiliate that aired the story, “A Journey to Promote Green Energy.” All of this was followed by a live radio interview with student-run WPGU and another interview with the Daily Illini. After a long day at the fair, I unwound by pedaling around the beautiful campus quad before heading back to Matt’s place for dinner with his family and friends, where we brainstormed on how to help supercharge the EV market.

I spent the next morning doing office work before rolling over to campus to check out the university’s solar decathlon house. Matt later joined me for an evening presentation by my colleague John Passacantando (former Executive Director of Greenpeace), also in town for Sustainability Week. John gave a great talk, and even pitched my ride and online petition. After the event, Matt took him for a spin in the TWIKE. As it turns out, John also loves bikes and even used to work in a bike shop, so we had a lot to talk about when John treated the two of us to dinner at an Irish pub.

Lying in a soft bed before drifting off to sleep that night, I thought about the unmistakable commonality between a rocket trike, a DeLorean-esque electric car, a super-practical TWIKE, an eco-village, a homemade renewable energy project, a coalmine turned wind project, and a solar-powered house. Each displays human ingenuity at its best. Each showcases a more elegant, and life-affirming, way of doing things. Each allows us to imagine a green energy future.

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.