Today’s post is by regular contributor, Richard Jurin. Before his retirement, Richard led the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, where he launched a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily shared by NAEE.
There are abundant metaphors around that point to the hubris of our modern world in its attempt to ward off ecological catastrophe while continuing to do the same actions that create the situations and without interfering with the global economic system that drives the ecological issues. They focus on changing the world’s technologies without changing the worldviews that created the problems – we have no real sense of direction and no reality check on the technological narratives that foster a cavalier attitude to simplistic solutions.
In Through a Glass Darkly – Part 1, I cited a statement by US Environmental Educator, David Orr, that expressed this futility, “in trying to move forward into such a future without a sense of direction is at best, ‘walking north on a southbound train.’” Another common metaphor that is widely used as a ‘think outside the box’ example is ‘trying to remodel a plane while you are flying it.’ As an encouraging metaphor it has merit, but as a practical metaphor for solving our global problems it runs into physical reality. We want to flip a policy switch and be in a clean green energy future. As a lecturer I was as guilty as most in trying to foster this transition, but reality is a harsh teacher. When I taught what an energy future could be, I then covered the realities of current green energy technology, and especially electricity generation.
Before delving into the realities of electricity, I will tell a tale of a journey in this ‘clean energy (?)’ world through a recent journey in an electric vehicle (EV). I recently attended a granddaughter’s college graduation from the University of California at Santa Barbara. We were travelling from near Santa Cruz (South of San Francisco) to Santa Barbara, some 259 miles away, according to Google. Getting to San Francisco meant taking a jet from Denver, Colorado (2.25 hour flight), but at least the journey to Santa Barbara would be ‘clean.’
My son uses a VW ID.4 to travel to work from his home in the hills above Santa Cruz to silicon-valley where he can recharge his EV car, if needed, courtesy of Google, before he drives home. His car is great for the short distances involved. The US-EPA rates his EV as having a 250 miles range on a fully charged battery. What the EV dealers or the EPA don’t mention are the realities of driving a longer distance. California has perhaps the largest EV charging network in the world, and a quick look at the network shows numerous charging stations throughout the length of the state.
The first reality check for a modern EV is known as the 20-80 charging rule. This is the practice of keeping the charging level of electric vehicle batteries between 20% and 80% of their full capacity, recommended for optimal battery health and performance over the long term. The second reality check is that the ‘level’ of charging greatly affects the charge time. Level 1 charging (using a regular outlet at home) can take up to 19 hours. Level 2 charging (using a 7kW fast charger) takes about 8 hours for a 40 kWh battery and 13 hours for an 82 kWh battery. Level 3 fast charging takes as little as 15 to 30 minutes to get to 80% charge depending on the vehicle and charger. Trying to charge above 80% takes substantially longer because of battery charging physics that follows a logarithmic profile).
We set off in two vehicles loaded with family with my son’s VW at an 80% charge for its first ‘long trip’ and my daughter-in-law driving a plug-in Hybrid Toyota RAV 4 that didn’t require charging per se and used gasoline for the main part of the journey after the 50-mile charge capacity was used.
My son had all the charging stations noted for the distance between his home and Santa Barbara (there were four the whole distance). Unlike variable local driving with regenerative charging, a run down the high-speed freeway (motorway) uses battery power faster. We drove past the first two charging options with plenty of charge remaining in the car, but the third option was within range. As we got closer to it, my son kept checking the charge and the distance still to go. We made it with 23% charge left for a potential range of 28 miles (next station 50 miles away). We were sixth in line for the bank of 4 chargers, and one was in the middle of being serviced. Apparently, the intense use of the chargers requires frequent maintenance.
While the car sat in line in the hot sun (34oC), we sat in the shade in a mall parking area for an hour chatting the time away with other charging users – you have to learn to be patient when driving an EV longer distance. The charging took about 24 minutes to reach 80% – the whole stop talking about 90 minutes. We reached the hotel for the night and my son then had to go and find another charger. He returned 35 minutes later ready to tackle local driving around Santa Barbara. The trip home because of the different distances between the stations wasn’t nail-biting, but required two stops.
I resisted the urge to ask what happens when an EV runs out of charge – simple answer, a tow truck to the nearest charging station. You end up doing a lot of planning and calculations when driving an EV on a longer trip. Then not trying to be obtuse, the inconvenient question; while the vehicle produced no emissions (apart from tyre wear), where did the electricity to charge the EV come from?
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Richard can be contacted at richardjurin@gmail.com.