AMERICAN.COM

The myth that the future belongs to electric cars is one of the original misconceptions of the modern energy era, dating back to the introduction of the very first passenger vehicles. During the industry’s first two decades, electric cars appeared to have great promise; in 1899, an electric car was the first to break the 60-mile-per-hour barrier. By the 1930s, however, improvements in gasoline engines had pushed electric cars off the market.

But the myth that electric vehicles are the future of transportation refuses to die. The resurgence of the electric dream began in the 1990s, when several models were introduced at exorbitant prices and with very little success. The most recent wave of electric cars ranges from the Tesla Roadster, which sells for $109,000, to the GM Volt, priced more reasonably at about $41,000. Enthusiasts, ranging from Hollywood celebrities to promoters waiting for more government subsidies (Volt will get about $7,000 per car!) foresee a rapid conquest of the global car market by the electrics.

I advise caution: Do not be surprised if electric cars do not follow the trajectory of personal computers and mobile phones. Leaving aside the prohibitive prices, the infrastructure needed to support wide-scale use of electric cars is nonexistent. How readily will the requisite millions of batteries be available when manufacturers are quick to unveil new, bold electric car plans but slow to commit to massive battery orders? And how will people in large cities, where 30 to 60 percent of cars are parked curbside, charge their vehicles? Mass construction of charging stations must precede mass ownership of electrics outside of the suburbs, where vehicles could be charged in garages. This is why researchers at IHS Global Insight put the share of pure electrics at just 0.6 percent of world sales in 2020, and why any claim that electric cars will soon take over the market is utterly unrealistic.

“Flipping the switch” and going electric will not solve America’s automotive dependence on imported oil, either in the near- or long-term. A far better use of resources would be to focus on the development of more efficient gasoline-powered engines; there is no reason the U.S. fleet should not average 50 mpg rather than today’s average of less than 25 mpg.

Vaclav Smil is author of Energy Myths and Realities and is a distinguished professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba.

Image by Tony Hall.

In 1954, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis L. Strauss made the now-famous pronouncement that nuclear energy would be “too cheap to meter.” This statement, overzealous and hyperbolic as it was, nevertheless embodied the high hopes invested by many knowledgeable people in nascent nuclear generation. The realities have been very different: in spite of some undeniable successes, nuclear power has fulfilled only a fraction of its original promise.

Nuclear electricity is now as important globally as hydroelectricity, and even relatively modest but steady capacity additions should keep that share, now close to 20 percent, from falling during the next ten to 20 years. However, public concerns about the safety of nuclear energy will be a major obstacle to its further development. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 have left exaggerated but hard-to-erase fears of nuclear energy that have blocked its progress in the United States and many EU countries. The economics of nuclear generation, furthermore, have always been in dispute, given the many externalities that have not been properly accounted for (above all, the concern that the industry could not bear the cost of a truly massive accident). Yet another unsolved matter is creating an acceptable method for permanently storing a small volume of highly radioactive waste that must be sequestered for thousands of years. Public unease about safety and problems with costs, liability, and permanent storage do not make a flourishing nuclear industry impossible, but they do demonstrate the enormous influence that mistaken public risk perception can have on government policy and reveal the consistently inept bureaucratic handling of the challenge so far.

Nuclear energy’s discouraging record is even more unfortunate given that nuclear generation is the only low-carbon-footprint energy option readily available on a gigawatt-level scale. This is why nuclear power should be part of any serious attempt to reduce the rate of global warming. At the same time, it would be naïve to think that nuclear power could be (as some suggest) the single most effective tool for combating climate change in the next ten to 30 years. The best hope is for it to offer a modest contribution.

Vaclav Smil is author of Energy Myths and Realities and is a distinguished professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba.

Image by U.S. Department of Energy.

A new energy myth was created by the country’s most famous Nobel Prize-winner in July 2008 when former Vice President Al Gore claimed that America’s entire thermal electricity generation industry could be replaced by “green” alternatives in a single decade: “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. This goal is achievable, affordable, and transformative.” Transformative it would be, but it would certainly not be affordable, and, even if it were, it could never be accomplished in such a short period of time.

Energy transitions—be they from coal to oil, from oil to natural gas, or from coal-fired electricity generation to a system relying primarily on renewable solar and wind flows—are inherently prolonged affairs. New energy sources and conversion techniques become commercially viable only after decades spent establishing new and often expensive infrastructures. In the case of wind and solar power, this would require not only massive construction of large wind farms and extensive fields of solar panels but also new, transcontinental, high-voltage transmission links. And even if this infrastructure were already in place, the United States would have to create in a single decade nearly twice as much the capacity for new electricity generation as it built in the past 50 years.

The history of energy transitions strongly suggests that no grandiose plans aimed at rapid changes in primary energy supply or accelerated commercial adoption and widespread use of new conversion techniques will be particularly successful. Wishful thinking, pioneering enthusiasm, and belief in the efficacy of seemingly superior solutions are not enough to change the fundamentally gradual nature of energy transitions, be they the shifts to new fuels or to new modes of electricity generation. Energy transitions nearly always require major infrastructural developments that rely on large capital investment; moreover, they inevitably confront environmental, legal, or organizational complications and are hindered by irrational perceptions of risk.

Al Gore was right: America needs a fundamental re-powering. But it will take decades of sustained investment and unprecedented innovation.

Vaclav Smil is author of Energy Myths and Realities and is a distinguished professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba.

Image by Douglas Cataylo.

In the 1990s, a group of retired geologists began flooding the media with warnings that an abrupt and imminent decline in oil supply would soon bring about the collapse of modern civilization. Some even claimed that it would push us 2.5 million years back in time to when our ancestors roamed the east African plains. This alarmist view, still so common today, is preposterous.

There is a finite amount of liquid oil in the Earth’s crust, but estimates of the grand total remain uncertain. Until we explore the entire planet as carefully as we did Oklahoma and Texas, our assessment of global oil reserves will have plenty of room for surprises. Improvements in production also mean that we are now recovering more oil than ever before. And, in addition to our supply of conventional liquid oil, there are vast, untapped reserves of unconventional hydrocarbon fuels, some of which are already being refined for use. A combination of new discoveries, higher recovery rates, and increased use of unconventional resources means that the near-term future of global oil production will not drop off precipitously, as alarmists claim, but will more likely resemble an undulating plateau.
Appraisals of the oil future tend to focus on dwindling supply and assume that demand will inexorably grow. But this is not the case. Rising oil prices and economic downturns exert clear downward pressure on demand, and we can reinforce this pressure through more efficient fuel conversions, by promoting sensible alternatives, and, above all, by turning to natural gas. This abundant fuel can do everything oil can, and is already the most important fuel for heating houses and the second most important fuel for generating electricity. The United States already has natural gas reserves sufficient for nearly a century at the current rate of consumption.

Extraction of any mineral resource must decline and eventually cease, but oil will continue to be a major contributor to the world energy supply in the coming decades. Whenever it comes, news of a peak in global oil production should be greeted with calm. Energy transitions throughout history—from biomass to coal, from coal to oil and gas, and from direct use of fuels to electricity—have always resulted in more productive and richer economies. Modern society will not collapse simply because we face yet another of these grand transformations.

Vaclav Smil is author of Energy Myths and Realities and is a distinguished professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba.

Image by Jawaad Mahmood.