Weekly-ish News - Episode 15 (May 16, 2021)

What's the Alternative?

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Headlines from this episode:

Electric Vehicles:

Plugins 10% of vehicle sales in CA in Q1 2021.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles won't need Tesla emissions credits anymore, which will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ford released details about their E-Transit vehicle.

• Prices are lower than expected, starting around $43k.
• These prices are ballpark $10k higher than gas models.

Ford to reveal new F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck May 19.

Rivian R1T electric pickup: More details about towing, gear tunnel, app-controlled tailgate.

Chevy officially released the software change for the Bolt battery fires, dealership visit required.

GM's Ultium EV plans have a dedicated battery recycler.

• Canada's Li-Cycle firm will recycle (up to) 100% of the *scrap* from Ultium battery pack manufacturing.
• No details about whether this feeds forward to recycling post-consumer batteries.

Madrid transit agency orders 50 electric buses from Irizar and BYD.

Electrify America installed 600 chargers over 3 years.

Electrify America details plan to invest $200 million more in EVSE, ports and EV education.

• California only
• Focus areas:
  • Expanding the network of highway fast charging stations, featuring charging power up to 350 kilowatts.
  • Deploying infrastructure to support transit and medium-duty/heavy-duty fleet charging.
  • Development of new tools and techniques, such as site-level energy management and energy modeling, to drive down both capital and operating costs.
  • Renewable generation for select stations as site-level energy management tools to help to reduce station operating costs and reduce carbon consumption.
  • Brand-neutral education and awareness, including educational marketing, ride-and-drives, and direct-to-consumer messaging through social media.
  • Supporting ZEV education and training efforts of other local organizations such as Veloz, EV Noire, Plug In America and the LA Cleantech Incubator.

Lion Electric will build a facility in Illinois.

• First production in 2022, will eventually produce 20k electric school buses per year.
• (They are based in Quebec.)

Ford will build batteries in 2025, partnering with BMW for solid-state tech.

Lithium production in California.

• This is a pilot plant, but it will prove the feasibility of a larger plant that can (hopefully) support 70k EVs per year.
• 5k tons of lithium per year

Vulcan Energy Resources plans to mine/produce lithium from deposits in Germany beneath the Rhine river.

• $2b USD investment in total.
• By 2025, they hope to produce 40k tons per year.

General overview of grid storage as a second life for EV batteries.

Study about hydrogen vs electrification and where to use each most effectively.

• TL;DR: Heavy-duty is a better fit than light-duty for hydrogen, no surprise whatsoever there.

1.5hr video from Sandy Munro about next-gen EV tech, worth a watch but a bit long and rambly.

DRIVE Electric USA in the news.

Study about the state of the EV industry and grid impacts.

Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin due to environmental concerns. Announced via an Elon tweet (of course).

Electric Grid:

A power plant was recommissioned purely for bitcoin:

• https://grist.org/technology/bitcoin-greenidge-seneca-lake-cryptocurrency/
• https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-firm-revives-zombie-fossil-fuel-power-plant-to-mine-bitcoin/
• They're using 85MW of natural gas power and will increase that to 500MW by 2025

Maine fishing groups are protesting offshore wind

Nuclear power being retired amidst climate goals.

• "Assuming the high risk and announced retirements were to be replaced by natural gas-fired generation with an average heat rate of 7,000 Btu/kWh, an incremental 1.9 Bcf/d of power burn would result from replacing these retired generators, equivalent to about 39 million mt/year of CO2 emissions, or 2% of 2016 levels, according to Platts Analytics."

Other Fuels:

Renewable Diesel plant will be built in Louisiana.

• Will produce 32 million gallons of Renewable Diesel per year
• This is will offset approximately 345k tons of greenhouses gases per year (a 77.8% reduction over traditional diesel)
• "Louisiana Green Fuels will make a capital investment of at least $700 million through the project. Along with the cash, 76 new direct jobs will be created. These jobs will have an annual salary of over $68,000 along with benefits. Louisiana Economic Development (LED) estimated that the project will result in an additional 412 new indirect jobs — totaling almost 500 new jobs in Caldwell Parish. The building phase is planned to take at least 30 months and will generate another 450 construction jobs."

$63m biofuel research grant announced by DOE (deadline passed).

Policy:

Oklahoma is considering some laws regarding electric vehicles, including road usage fees and taxes for charging.

• One item is to start a task force to explore road usage fees and find a reasonable implementation.
• The DRIVE Act would enact a $0.03/kWh tax for charging at for-profit, public chargers (would not affect home charging).
• The DRIVE Act would also include an income tax credit for EV owners to basically refund these charging taxes, but the tax credit cannot exceed the registration fee.

Clean Cars 2030 (Washington State) was vetoed by the governor due to the inclusion of a road usage fee.

• "Section 6 of the bill ties a very important goal of electrifying our transportation sector to the implementation of a road usage charge program. Transportation is our state’s greatest source of carbon emissions and we cannot afford to link an important goal like getting to 100% zero-emission vehicles to a separate policy that will take time to design and implement."

California's Air Resources Board has proposed an EV ruling that would require 80% EVs by 2035.

• This backs down slightly from 100% by 2035, the previous goal.
• PHEVs would satisfy this requirement, provided they have an electric range of 50 miles or more.
• PHEVs can only make up 20% of an automaker's compliance.
• It will be a credit system, same as the other CARB systems.