Blog Post: Charging My Car In Manhattan ... And Other Thoughts on EVs

Blog Post - Charging My Car In Manhattan ... And Other Thoughts on EVs

Greetings

I hope that those of you out there that want snow are coping with the lack of it this Winter. And I hope that those of you who don’t like and/or complain about snow but who live in areas that are supposed to get snow are not expressing your glee too loudly.

One thing to note: There are areas of the U.S. which usually get the most snow of any month in March. My fingers will be crossed and my snowshoes ready to step into.

This issue has a “Caught My Eye” section that may be even broader than usual, as there are blurbs that range from the usual wind, solar, heat pump and EV variety to ones that focus on soil offsets and migration. Hope you enjoy. I also include another personal nugget on one of the things I did when I was a young radical, er…I mean rascal.

In my Op Ed, I focus on a favorite topic of mine, and lately of every media outlet in the country – EVs. I had an interesting EV experience recently that I share, but I also try to address all the different headlines you are seeing about EVs.

I hope you enjoy.

Dan

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Links to Past Posts:

Step Into These Shoes Wearing a Climate and Energy Hat

Resilience Recognition is Rising - But There is That Other Thing

There is no "O" in Climate Change

It was an Instagram COP - And I am Finally OK with That

How to Talk About Climate With Your Crazy Uncle at Thanksgiving

Monty Python and Climate Change

What You Need to Know About NIMBYism

H mm..So How Much Did My Heat Pump Really Cost?

What it Means to Be a Climate Voter

The Climate Conundrum of Air Conditioning

Predictions Made About Utilities Made 10 Years Ago - How Did They Hold up?

My Vote For The Most Under-Appreciated Impact of Climate Change

10 Things I Should Have Written About

So I Went to the COP - Here Are My Top 10 Takeaways.

Efficiency and Clean Energy - Faster vs More

Efficiency & Clean Energy - More vs. Faster

It's Time For A Climate Vote - On the Record

Good COP, Bad COP .....Thoughts Before Glasgow

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

What I Should Have Written About

The Serenity of Being a Climate Voter

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Some Things That Caught My Eye ...

One of the Annual Clean Energy Must-Reads

The 2024 Edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Fact Book was released this week. A collaboration of Bloomberg NEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, it is one of the best evaluations of the previous year in all sorts of categories. The 2024 Edition has some great data and charts on what has happened since (and likely due to) the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

https://bcse.org/market-trends/

Heat Pumps are Winning …

Attempts by local governments to ban new gas hook-ups have suffered some setbacks in the courtroom recently. But that isn’t the only forum in which the electric vs gas wars are being fought.

The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute recently announced that in 2023 Americans bought 21 percent more heat pumps than the next most-popular option – gas furnaces. The Institute said that is the largest lead that heat pumps have ever had over gas in the two decades that they have been tracking the metric.

https://grist.org/energy/heat-pumps-outsold-gas-furnaces-again-last-year-and-the-gap-is-growing/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily

You’ll Want This Talking Point on Solar/Wind Additions to the U.S. Grid

Solar and Battery Storage’s combined share of U.S. power capacity additions in 2024 is predicted by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to be 81%. On the other side of the coin, planned gas-fired additions are the lowest in 25 years.

Full EIA primer

Poll: Make Sure You Are Talking About the Topic They Want to Hear About

A recent Poll by the Third Way organization shows what many others have shown – that while Climate is rising as something that people are aware of and concerned about – it does not always translate into a real-time pocketbook issue for many people.

The poll showed that people were more moved by messages that talked about clean energy being a step towards energy independence (which of course is a theme that those working to slow climate action have wrapped themselves in) and also a way to improve public health (by curbing pollution). The pollsters said these messages resonated much more than those focused on boosting renewable energy as a way of addressing climate change.

https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2024/02/16/poll-cutting-energy-prices-more-powerful-campaign-message-than-climate-00141521

Best Climate Quote I’ve Seen Recently

The World Meteorological Organization has a new Secretary General and she is speaking out about more than the weather. In a recent interview, she said that the rate of climate change is accelerating and went on to talk about the challenge in getting the world to act quickly. She said that the slow efforts to curb climate change are not about diplomacy, but instead about power and economy. She said, “we are lagging behind our objectives because of our economic interests – economic interests – that are well beyond what our common sense, our diplomats and our scientists are pointing out”.

Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke

As I think I said when I was writing about the Eastern Canadian situation last summer, wildfire was always on my list of future climate impacts when I gave a presentation – but not wildfire smoke.

I am sure we have all sat around a campfire at least once in our life and not thought about how many physical particles we were inhaling (especially if we were sitting in the wrong spot around the fire). So, it is not just the destructive force of the fire itself as it destroys buildings and everything else in its path that we need to worry about. It’s also the smoke as this article shows.

Oh… also… some of that wood that burns in a forest fire could be part of a carbon offset that someone paid for to help them reach their emission reduction goal. That indeed happened a lot in the case of the California forest fires.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/climate/wildfire-smoke-health.html

It’s Not Just Forests

You probably know that forests, in climate-speak, are “sinks”. The absorb and capture carbon dioxide and retain it for as long as the trees stand.

But soil, grassland vegetation, and cropland does that too, although there seems to be less certainty as to how much or how well. Since everyone wants a carbon offset – both those who need them (carbon emitters) and those who might have them to sell (in this case farmers) want to know. This article talks a bit about what the USDA is trying to do about that.

https://grist.org/agriculture/farm-bill-soil-carbon-climate-smart-agriculture-farmers/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily

This Many People are Already Doing This Even Before Climate Change Comes Full Force

One of the things you see on a list of what will happen in the future under climate change is climate-induced migration of significant numbers of people. The causes are said to be too-hot-to-take temperatures, drought, desertification, and agricultural failure.

But there is a lot of migration already underway as can be seen in the headlines every day, especially here in the U.S. at our Southern Border. A recent Gallup Poll came up with a striking number – nearly 900 million people worldwide wanted to migrate in 2021. Now of course that represents migration based on all sorts of reasons (e.g. political persecution, etc.). But still, it means that people will move if they feel they must, and the impacts of climate change at some point in the future will mean they have to.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-worldwide-wanted-migrate-2021.aspx

Remembering What I Did When I Was a Young Rascal

I was barely out of the crib when the original Earth Day happened, yet somehow had matured enough later that decade to sign on with one of the original founders of Earth Day to help create a new “day”. This one was Sun Day in 1978. As you can guess, it was all about using solar energy. But solar at that time largely meant solar hot water; photovoltaic cells were expensive and the levels of efficiency for sun-to-electricity conversion we see today were far off. If you have ever heard about Jimmy Carter putting solar panels on the White House, that was a solar hot-water system.

That was then, and this is now. Many people have probably never seen a hot-water system. But they still exist, and maybe ready for a comeback, as this WAPO article discusses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/13/solar-thermal-water-heater/

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Charging My Car in Manhattan … And Other Thoughts on EVs

I have been spending a lot of time in New York City recently. I have a daughter and granddaughter who live there, and I love what the city has to offer in terms of art, theater, and live music. So that I could bring my pooch along, I have been driving instead of taking the train.

Recently I pulled into Manhattan for a few weeks, with my EV showing a remaining range of about 60 miles as I parked.

I didn’t use my car the entire time I was there, other than moving it to the other side of the street as the streetsweeper came by on Mondays and Thursdays.

During the last week I was there I began to hear about the deep freeze the Midwest was experiencing, and the impact it was apparently having on EVs there. I decided I probably should charge my car in the city before I left instead of waiting to do it on the road. When I got into my car, I was pleased to see that my range had only dropped by a few miles since arriving, with that presumably being because of the cold.

As far as I can tell, all the chargers in Manhattan are inside of parking garages. My car can use a fast (Level 3) charger, and the car told me there were 3 such stations in the city. I had a fleeting thought about that not being very many but thankfully one of the locations was nearby, near Battery Park.

The chargers were in a private parking garage under a new building on the Hudson that has a small shopping mall among other things. There were only four separate chargers and each was occupied. So, a valet took my car and my phone number and said I would get a text when it was fully charged. I went to the mall to get a cup of coffee and fire up my laptop.

It was more than an hour before I got the text. (a full charge at a fast charger normally takes me about 30 minutes). I went to retrieve my car.

It cost me $68 in parking fees to charge my car.

That doesn’t include the electricity.

Now you may be adding this recent experience of mine to a list of reasons why not to buy an EV. But I am relating this story not as a complaint – I love my car - but as a reminder to all of us as to why we are talking about – and driving – EVs.

Any good list of cons should be accompanied by a list of pros. And those are multiple when it comes to EVs, especially one that I want to highlight in a moment.

EVs are getting a lot of media ink these days and the themes seems to be all over the place. The problems with charging stations, or lack thereof, is a big focus. That is a legitimate issue. As I have noted previously, it seems that both industry and government got all caught up in the car itself, without making the proper preparation and taking the necessary steps to have the charging infrastructure ready for the vehicles that were being promoted, incentivized, and sold. Instead, everyone seems to have focused too much on range, and range anxiety. Speaking for myself, with a charger on the side of my house for overnight top-offs, I care about where the chargers are when I am travelling – especially the fast (Level 3) ones that my car is able to use.

Some EV headlines talk about manufacturers like Ford or GM “blinking” and pulling back on their commitment and manufacturing quota and turning back to production of Hybrid vehicles. Yet other headlines show other manufacturers staying the course and reinforcing their commitment.

EVs have become a political hot potato, especially for President Biden as auto workers continue to be concerned about labor downsizing that may occur with a turn to all EVs. With an eye on a swing state like auto-centric Michigan, there are rumors about the Administration pulling back on the about-to-be-released EPA rules on future tailpipe emissions, rules which have been designed to accelerate the switch to EVs.

EVs are obviously having growing pains. But no matter what they are, are they enough to cause moves to slow down the transition from gasoline to electricity?

According to Bloomberg NEF’s 2024 Sustainability Fact Book, emissions from power plants went down in 2023. Emissions from the transportation sector, the largest emitting sector, went up.

That means that a car that uses electricity got cleaner last year, depending on its location and the local electric generation mix. And all signs and predictions are for the generation mix to continue to get better across the country since solar and wind are the cheapest things to add.

That means that a person’s choice when buying their next car is not the choice they might first think it is.

At this point, when we make any choice involving energy, we are likely making a climate-related choice. Most people know at this point that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change. We also know that large energy-related purchases, if they use fossil fuels, are going to emit carbon dioxide and contribute (no matter how small) to global warming.

When a person buys a car with an internal combustion engine (ICE) they have made a choice to continue to burn fossil fuel.

Now before you accuse me of getting on my high EV-horse, I will readily admit that I am lucky to be able to use an EV without any impact on my lifestyle or workstyle. I have a stand-along house and was able to mount a charger on the side of it. I had the means to have more models to select from when I bought the car.

It is not so simple and straightforward for others, especially for those living in cities and multi-family building or for the owners of the 50% of vehicles that don’t have a dedicated parking spot. I get that.

But my point is, do we really have a choice when it comes to buying and driving EVs. Should buyers who could buy an EV instead purchase an ICE car that will be driven on the road, and emitting CO2, for years to come.

Most Americans, when surveyed, say that they are concerned about climate change and want to do something about it.

They need to realize that they may already be taking climate actions – good and bad – via the purchasing decisions they make. They need to realize that they are making climate choices that they are not really thinking about.

For years now, the world as a whole has made a choice about climate change but is has been the default choice of not doing anything different that might reduce emissions. The result has been that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at any time in the last 4 million years – before humans walked the earth. The result is that we are already seeing impacts of climate change, with more changes already baked into the system.

When it comes to our purchases, do we really have the choices we think we have?

Might be something to ponder.

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If you were forwarded this email, click the button below to sign up to receive these Blog Posts.

Join Our Email List

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Links to Past Posts:

Step Into These Shoes Wearing a Climate and Energy Hat

Resilience Recognition is Rising - But There is That Other Thing

There is no "O" in Climate Change

It was an Instagram COP - And I am Finally OK with That

How to Talk About Climate With Your Crazy Uncle at Thanksgiving