While we may learn more later today, it seem that the prospects of Congress passing climate change legislation, probably a long shot  to begin with, have become even dimmer.  With what appears to be Senator’s Graham’s withdrawal from negotiations with Senators Kerry and Lieberman, the fate of their bipartisan proposal, which was to be unveiled today, is bleak.

At the same time the prospects for climate change legislation get bleaker, we may be seeing oil prices on the rise, as the New York Times noted just this morning.  Although inventories remain high, oil prices have hovered in the mid-$80s recently as economic reports indicate a strengthening economy.  

While climate legislation may have faltered, there is more that needs to be done on the energy front.  Bipartisan energy legislation passed the Senate energy committee last year, and there was broad agreement on many issues that are necessary for our energy future.  Perhaps most important, is the need to continue taking aggressive action to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil, which has imposed billions of dollars of costs on our economy over the past four decades.

A key component of any effort to address oil dependence should be an effort to electrify our surface transportation system, for a range of reasons, including the reduction in carbon emissions that electrification would achieve.  After all, our dependence on oil also is responsible for a significant portion of the nation’s carbon emissions; one third of the nation’s carbon emissions come from the transportation sector, and more than 75 percent of those emissions are from on-the-road vehicles. 

Electrification offers several advantages over the status quo: 

• Electricity is diverse and domestic: Electricity is generated from a diverse set of largely domestic fuels. An electricity-powered transportation system, therefore, is one in which an interruption in the supply of one fuel can be made up for by others. 
• Electricity prices are stable: Electricity prices are much less volatile than oil or gasoline prices. Since 1983, the average retail price of electricity delivered in the United States has risen by an average of less than 2 percent per year in nominal terms and has actually fallen in real terms.   
• Available capacity: The U.S. electric power sector is constructed to be able to meet peak demand. However, throughout most of a 24-hour day—particularly at night—consumers require significantly less electricity than the system is capable of delivering. Therefore, the electric power sector has substantial spare capacity that could power electric vehicles. 
• Available Infrastructure: Unlike many proposed alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, the nation already has a ubiquitous network of electricity infrastructure. No doubt, electrification will require the deployment of charging infrastructure, additional functionality, and increased investment in grid reliability, but the power sector’s infrastructural backbone—generation, transmission, and distribution—is already in place.  
• Electric miles are cleaner than gasoline miles and will facilitate emission reductions: Vehicle miles fueled by electricity emit less CO₂ than those fueled by gasoline—even with today’s generation mix. As renewable and nuclear power increase their share of the electricity portfolio, the emissions profile of the transportation sector will improve over time without any additional changes to the vehicles; this improvement will directly enhance the CO₂ benefits of transitioning to electric vehicles.  Moreover, emission reductions generally are more cost-effective at the power plant than at the tailpipe; thus electrification will help facilitate carbon emission reductions in the transportation sector.

Therefore, while we may have lost (or are in the process of losing) a critical opportunity to address carbon emissions from stationary sources, we still have an opportunity to head down a road that will meaningfully address carbon emissions from transportation while also enhancing our national, economic and energy security.  Let’s not miss this opportunity.

Previous Post  

Next Post

WaPo wrong on CES
May 21, 2012

Iran’s Desperation Increases
May 18, 2012

Diplomatic Council Launch and Release of Oil and the Trade Deficit
May 17, 2012