WINDAND SOLAR POWER NO FRIENDS TO EVS
Some renewable energy sources make them less cost efficient than gasoline-powered vehicles
You know you’re doing something right when William Henry Gates III — you might know him better as Bill — is a fan boy. Yes, as brilliant and lauded as Mr. Microsoft is, he fawns over a (semi) obscure Canadian scientist named Vaclav Smil.
Citing Smil’s unique ability to go both deep and broad — as in being able to plum a subject to its depths but also bring insights from across many disciplines — Gates claims to have read almost all of Smil’s books. Considering that the University of Manitoba professor emeritus has published 37 — four in 2013 alone, says Gates — that’s quite a feat. Nonetheless, the world’s sometimes richest man claims he waits “for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie.”
Smil’s books are not easy reads — says the man who gave us Control-Alt-Delete — and the latest, Energy and Civilization: A History, is no exception. But one of the core principles is something called energy returned on energy invested, or ERoEI. Essentially, ERoEI is a measure of how efficiently you are gathering or creating new energy. Obviously, getting a lot of energy out of a process while minimizing the amount of energy used is the desired end goal. By way of example, Smil cites the human transition from hunters to farmer/gatherer as an example of the benefits of energy production efficiency.
For instance, when gathering food, foragers could collect as many as 40 units of food energy for every unit expended while hunters, especially those chasing small mammals (not much energy return) in dense forests, often had a “net energy loss,” i.e. they used more energy killing the animal than they gained by eating it.
In automotive terms, think of the corn-ethanol-as-fuel controversy. Depending on which expert you listen to — energy expenditure/output equations are not an exact science — turning corn into an (internally) combustible fuel takes more energy than the ethanol generates (a net loss). By Smil’s standards, then, producing automotive fuel from corn makes about as much sense as chasing small animals through an equatorial rainforest.
Where this gets even more interesting is when applying the same ERoEI equation to the question of electricity versus fossil fuels as efficient energy sources for our future transportation needs. Of course, electric motors, as EV proponents constantly remind us, are far more energy efficient than internal combustion engines (ICE). The best any ICE has ever boasted is about 40 per cent (the recent Toyota Prius) while woe is the electric motor that is less than twice that efficient. According to Goehring & Rozencwajg, a New York firm specializing in resource and energy investment, a Tesla Model 3, for example, might use 75 per cent less energy to cover a mile than would, say, a Toyota Camry four-banger.
Where things get a little complicated, and decidedly less clear cut, is when one looks at the whole picture — the wells-to-wheels energy analogy that scientists use as a true measure of efficiency — and include the production of said automobiles as well as the “mining” of their energy sources.
Of the former, the advantage still lies with the EV. Even when you factor in, for example, that mining lithium and producing batteries eats up an incredible amount of energy, says G & R, an EV is still more efficient than an ICE-powered car that consumes seven or so litres per 100 kilometres.
Things get a little closer when you get nearer to 5.0 L/100 km — think that Prius again — but the percentage of hybrids on the road is still small enough to be ignored.
Where the equation starts getting seriously murky, however, is when you start considering the production of electricity. The bottom line is this: If you want your EV to be powered by modern clean-energy sources such as wind and solar power, then the efficiency equation changes dramatically. Citing the cost of producing solar farms or wind-powered turbines, G & R claims that internally-combusting cars are more efficient than EVs, the energy investment firm calculating that a gasoline-fuelled vehicle boasting 35 miles per U.S. gallon would be 40 to 45 per cent more energy efficient than the equivalent electric car, factoring in the energy expenditure required for current zero-emissions technologies. It’s worth noting that G & R is using current oil production efficiencies for this calculation; if we had to rely on the Alberta oilsands, its much poorer ERoEI would swing the equation back in favour of electricity.
In simple terms, from an energy efficiency standpoint, electric vehicles make a lot of sense for someplace like Quebec, where its clean energy is produced by hydroelectric power, and not so much in Ontario, where we’ve spent billions on solar panels and wind farms.
The reason that this is so important is that society is always seeking the most efficient energy source. In fact, Smil claims that, at no point in the history of man, modern or Neanderthal, have humans “realized a large-scale energy revolution” by replacing an existing energy production system with a less efficient one. Like the energy investors G & R serves, we, too, are always seeking the highest possible return.
Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Specifically, it does not factor in greenhouse gas emissions, which, of course, are vastly reduced by those solar panels and wind farms. As Smil states, we’ve never considered anything other than energy efficiency before. The question, then, is whether we will make an exception to this norm for emissions, or is this supposed environmental awareness disruption — like so many supposed paradigm shifts to housing prices, interest rates and stock markets — just a temporary fixation? If it is not, then the EV has a tough road ahead.
G & R stated that “If the EV were adopted today, it would be a historical ‘first,’ in bucking the trend to ever-increasing energy efficiency.”
As for those who think the problem will be solved by simple improvements in wind and solar power generation efficiency, Smil would seem to be pessimistic about big gains in the future. As Gates says in his review of Energy and Civilization, “(Smil) is absolutely right that Moore’s Law and the speedy advances in software have misled people into thinking all innovation and adoption happens that quickly,” a concern Motor Mouth has voiced concerning the electric grids that would be necessary for a complete changeover to electric cars.
The future may indeed be electric, but if Smil’s thesis is right, it might not be a speedy transition.