WEBVTT - Rethinking Electrification 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:15.280 Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today. I want 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.680 to talk about something that has been getting a lot 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:23.640 of attention lately and is kind of rife with misinformation. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.560 That is the environmental impact of the electrify Everything movement. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.159 This is something that a lot of climate folks have 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.080 been really hesitant to talk about, or even have been 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.680 kind of defensive about, because they don't want people talking 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.680 as though renewables have the exact same impact as fossil fuels, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.640 or this idea that they'll be even worse, or that 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.800 they're not an improvement. All of these our talking points 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.200 that several folks on the right are starting to push. 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:58.520 You've got Ted. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:04.520 Cruz ringing hands about child labor in cobalt mines, for example. 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.480 You've got a lot of pundits who carry water for 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:13.760 the fossil fuel industry claiming that the land required for 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:18.480 both mining and installing renewables, the materials required, all of 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.119 that is going to be a bigger environmental problem than 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:23.160 drilling for oil. 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:30.480 That is not true. However, there are definitely impacts, and 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.959 one of the key ways that we can minimize those 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:40.679 impacts is to curb energy consumption across the board. We 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.120 are at this moment right now that's very pivotal, where 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.440 the US in particular is trying to plan out an 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:54.680 energy transition, and instead of going, oh, no, electric is great, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.720 we don't need to think about this stuff, it's actually 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.200 the perfect time to figure out how to minimize the 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.680 environmental impact of our energy system. One way to do 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.400 that is to curb consumption. That is not something that 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.040 any energy company wants to talk about, it's not something 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.760 that most American capitalists want to talk about, but it 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:23.440 is absolutely necessary for systemically addressing the problem of climate change. 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.600 I wrote about this recently in the Intercept, and for 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.840 that piece I interviewed a really interesting researcher on this subject, 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.760 the a Rio Francos. She recently put out a report 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:38.120 for the Climate and Community Project entitled Achieving zero emissions 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.640 with More Mobility and Less Mining. That report concluded that 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.360 even relatively small, pretty easy to achieve shifts in our behavior, 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.760 like reducing the size of cars and their batteries, could 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.640 deliver big returns a forty two percent reduction in the 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.080 amount of lithium needed in the US, even if the 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.600 number of cars on the road and the frequency with 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.720 which people drive stayed the same. I asked Rio Francos 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.079 to talk me through her report and all of its 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.880 very interesting findings, and that conversation is coming up after 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:15.000 this quick break. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.680 I am Theoreo Francos, and I'm an associate professor of 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.320 political science at Providence College and also a member of 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.280 the Climate and Community Project. 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.000 Can I have you, And I know this is annoying 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.080 because you just wrote an eighty plus page report on it, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.760 but can I have you just give kind of a 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:54.080 brief summary of what this report is and kind of 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:55.600 what you're putting forth in it. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.560 You know, maybe I'll start with like the origins of 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:03.040 why we even thought to create this report, because I 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.200 think it helps listeners understand what the state of the 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.280 kind of policy and academic conversation is on these topics 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.000 and what some of the gaps are. So many years ago, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.960 in early twenty nineteen, when I was first in Chile 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:23.040 researching the social and environmental impacts of lithium mining there, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.080 and Chile is the world's number two producer of lithium, 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.719 and also some of the kind of contentious politics around 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.159 extraction of this mineral, I started to kind of think, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.000 you know, would it matter in terms of how much 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.520 lithium was needed, how the sort of global energy transition 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.720 is designed, or how the US energy transition is designed. Right, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.719 are there futures in which less lithium and less of 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.159 these other transition minerals are required than some of the 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.000 most alarming kind of reports and predictions I began to 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.480 see from the International Energy Agency and then the World 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.599 Bank and multiple other forecasting agencies which were and remain 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.960 pretty alarming in terms of how much mining they are 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.080 predicting will occur or be demanded. And I started to 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.200 kind of look for that research. And at the same time, 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.560 I was doing a lot of climate advocacy work, a 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.680 lot of Green New Deal organizing, and so I was 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.560 thinking a lot about an urgent and rapid and just 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.240 energy transition in the US. But I was kind of 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.280 thinking about both ends of the supply chain at once, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.520 Like here I am in Chile and the Atacama Desert 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.279 seeing these mining related harms, and then there I go 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.760 in the US kind of advocating for a rapid transition, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.000 Like how do I align these two goals? And is 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.200 there a way to kind of have a less extractive 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.960 energy transition? And the answer was that research didn't exist, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.000 at least not for the US transportation sector. Right, And 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.320 each year that went on up until the present, up 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.440 until the launch of our report, that research still didn't exist. 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.680 I saw forecast after forecast that assumed basically a binary 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.240 of the future. Right, Either we stay with the fossil 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.080 fuel status quo and the existential crisis that that is 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.000 causing for the planet and all of its people, or 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:06.040 we transition to an electrified, renewably powered future. But that 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.279 doesn't really change anything about how these sectors or economic 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.359 activities are organized. Right, So it's binary. It's either fossil 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.320 fuel or kind of electrified version of the status quo, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.239 and there was very little research sort of in between 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.559 those two or that mapped out or sort of broke down. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.400 Let's look at the electrified future and say that there 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.520 are multiple ways to design it, with implications for all 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.480 sorts of things, including how quickly advanced towards our climate goals, 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.640 including how equitably we do so, and including these kind 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.000 of supply chain considerations that we also bring to the 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.920 table in this report. So, you know, with that kind 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.760 of frustration, but also that kind of continued curiosity about like, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.000 is there another path forward that's not currently being modeled. 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.920 We set out to create that model and kind of 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:57.320 actually have a data driven analysis of the very different pathways, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.960 all of which are zero emissions, all of which are electrified, 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.640 all of which are renewably powered, but very tremendously in 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.960 the specifics in ways that, as I said, have these 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.280 kind of broader implications. And to combine that with more 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.080 qualitative research on the harms of mining, on some of 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.560 the supply chain bottlenecks and constraints that we see on 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.520 the horizon, and to produce something that we hope is 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.240 kind of useful to advocates across the supply chain, you know, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.400 whether it's climate transit, folks that are concerned about mining impacts, 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.240 whatever the issue at stake is. I think that there's 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:30.920 a way to align them if we think holistically about 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:32.720 the design of the energy transition. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.400 Yeah, okay, And I think that one of the things 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.760 that really jumped out to me in this report was, 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.480 you know, again like kind of along the lines of 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.680 this binary that you're pointing out. I think people are 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:50.160 often like, Okay, we can either electrify cars or have 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.400 fossil fuel cars, and that's it. You know, there's been 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:59.679 very little conversation about moving away from car dependency in general, 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:04.640 and very little policy movement on that front. I feel like, 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.480 you know, every once in a while, Elon Musk will 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.240 like pooh pooh the idea of public transit, and we'll 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:14.040 get a little bit of like a Twitter dispat going 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.160 about it, and like there's I don't know, there just 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.600 hasn't been as much conversation about that as you might 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.480 expect when we're talking about decarbonizing transport. So I'm wondering 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:26.680 if I could have you kind of map out these 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.360 three different or four different scenarios that you in the 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.920 report and kind of walk people through what would be 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:35.520 required to. 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:36.719 Do each of those. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.000 I was really struck by the fact that, like, even 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.960 if nothing else changes and we just have some policy 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.000 around the size of EV batteries, for example, that would 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.679 deliver a pretty major reduction in these impacts that you're 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:50.439 talking about. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.160 So the way that we design our report it is 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.080 kind of interesting, and I think again it draws out 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.360 these themes of connecting the dots kind of across the 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.320 supply chain. We first kind of sketch out what are 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.520 different possible zero missions transportation futures, Like, if we look 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.360 ahead to the US in twenty fifty and assume that 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.800 our transportation is one hundred percent without carbon emissions, what 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.600 would that actually concretely look like. And we sketch out 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.000 four different scenarios, again, all of which eliminate emissions, but 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.480 they differ and in some cases pretty dramatically, on a 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.880 variety of parameters. So the first scenario, as you kind 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.160 of suggested, and as I was hinting at earlier, just 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.400 keeps everything the same except electrifize it. Right, So we 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.360 have the same patterns of car usage and car dependency 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.120 and vehicle ownership. We also have the same kind of 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.079 land use patterns of that suburban sprawl that itself incentivizes 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.120 car use or even requires it. And so we change 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:51.040 basically nothing about American society, built environment, infrastructure, but we 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.280 swap out ice vehicles for evs, and we do so 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.280 in a growing manner over time, until we get to 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.640 twenty fifty. That scenario one electrified status quo. We have 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.600 three others, and what they do is kind of progressively 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.120 in a stepwise fashion, add in more changes. Some of 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.280 them are not huge changes, some of them are more dramatic, 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.839 and so it gives us a real range and as 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.640 I said, gets into the black box of electrification and 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:17.760 opens it up and reveals it to be a whole 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.959 host of choices. So in scenario two, what we look 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.160 at is shifting mode share and that's just a fancy 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.360 technical term for what percentage of people are using what 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.320 types of transportation for their trips. You know, am I 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.160 using a bus or am I using a bike? Or 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:34.880 am I you know which mode of transportation? Or am 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.520 I using a car? Right? And so we move people 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.440 so that more of those trips are being taken in 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:42.800 non car options. But we still have cars, we still 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.920 have evs, but we start to nudge people towards buses 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:47.160 and cycling and walking. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:47.600 Right. 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.000 In the third scenario, we do more of that. So 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.680 we do more of that mode shift towards transit, cycling, 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:01.160 and walking. We also densify metropolitan regions. Right. We see 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.280 a lot of sprawl in ways that are very out 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.080 of line with like the rest of the world. Like 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.319 when we move especially to the edges of a city 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.400 or to those first string suburbs and then out to 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.440 the excervs, like the distances just get really big, and 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.280 we don't even have to go to rural areas to 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.920 see those that sprawl or that distance. And so we 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.680 densify things a bit so that the distances are shorter, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.440 and those changes also get accompanied by a decrease in 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.000 how many people own vehicles, right, so that scenario three 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.000 more of a mode shift, slightly denser metropolitan regions, and 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.760 lower levels of car ownership. Scenario four is like our 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.720 turbocharged in a positive sense scenario, right, our most ambitious one. 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:40.800 We do all of those things, but more we say, like, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.120 you know, what if we really brought mode shares in 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:46.640 line with like the places in the world where folks 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.320 use like the most transit or cycle the most, Right, 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.760 what if we densify even more, right, or bring vehicle 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.679 ownership rates down even more? And I just want to 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.920 flag that even in scenario four, there are lots of evs, right, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.600 you know, and I'm aware of, you know, the debates 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:03.760 around this topic, right, So I just want to flag 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.280 that we don't actually eliminate electric vehicles in any of 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.240 our scenarios. We just play around with getting people to 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.760 take trips through different modes, making those distances shorter and 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.520 discouraging car ownership, which tends to happen when there are 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.040 other modes available and also when the distances are shorter. Right, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.679 can you talk through what the obstacles to those kinds 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.920 of shifts are? You know, what are the things stopping either. 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:32.120 The options being made available or people availing themselves of 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:32.920 those options. 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.760 Right? I might, if you don't mind, just slightly personalize 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:41.120 this because I have experienced this firsthand where I know 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.040 that in the US, and especially in auto industry advertising 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.920 to consumers, cars are very associated with freedom. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:48.240 Right. 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.480 You know, this is like the American dream is like 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.160 you drive anywhere everyone owns their own car. But you know, 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.760 for me, when I look at the transportation system and 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.280 also my own interaction with it in my own life, 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.800 I expect he instance is like a lack of choices, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.280 like a lack of freedom. Right. Like I have lived 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.319 in places where it was not only not required, but 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.880 actually more annoying to have a car than to use 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.160 a bike or bus or a subway or something else. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.439 And I now live in a place where the opposite 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.480 is true. I live in a city which is Providence, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.520 Rhode Island. But it's very hard to just live your 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.760 daily life and be a full member of society without 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.439 owning a car. And it's actually the first place where 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.480 I got a driver's license. I think I was thirty 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.880 one or thirty two. In other places I lived, as 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.839 I said, in the US and elsewhere in the world, 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:34.000 it was just not a thing. You didn't have to 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:35.360 own a car. I grew up in New York City, 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:36.920 so I know I'm weird, but I more kind of 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:38.920 just want to say that, like I moved to a 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.200 place that, again was an urban environment, and there are 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.920 buses and people, there are some bike lanes a little bit, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.640 but it was impossible for me to commute to work 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.720 and to do the rest of my daily life stuff 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.160 without a car. I had this exact experience. 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.480 I lived in San Francisco and Oakland forever, and then 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.680 I moved to the mountains, and like, there's theoretically a bus, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.480 but it's like there's like a two hour spectrum of 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:03.560 time when it may or may not come. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.240 So you know, if you have like a normal. 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.520 Job where you have to be anywhere at a particular time, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.360 that's not going to work for you. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.440 And that's the only option, you know, Yeah, I think 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.680 that it's totally understandable to me that the vast majority 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.040 of Americans use cars to get around because they live 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.400 in context, even some urban context, but especially suburban and 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.440 obviously especially rural context, where there really is no other option. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.960 And so I neither blame individuals for those choices, nor 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.080 do I see our current transportation system as a paragon 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.080 of freedom, right, especially when we consider how financially burdensome 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.760 cars are for peorn working class people. Right, it's a 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.440 real you know, it's just an expense, and it's a 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.320 set of annoyances of maintaining increasingly old cars and filling 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.840 them with gas that's increasingly expensive, right, right, And you know, 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.600 there's a real affordability concern around electric vehicles, which obviously 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.960 federal subsidies are meant to address. I don't oppose that, 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.200 but I do think that it raises the question of 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.200 is there another path forward? Not that fully eliminates electric vehicles. 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.960 I don't see that as feasible in any like near 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.360 medium term, but that kind of gives them the right 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:22.320 proportion in a broader transportation system that involves other options 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.280 and other possibilities for people to move around that are 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.320 more equitable, more affordable, maybe even free if we look 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.480 into experiments and like the fair free buses popping up 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.720 in some cities that are more active like biking and 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.760 walking and good for physical and mental health in that way. 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.960 You know, there's a whole host of benefits that a 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.120 company just again not eliminating cars, but bringing them down 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.400 to size and having other modes of transportation available to 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.920 people and sort of creating different types of street scapes 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:53.160 and land uses around that. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.360 Yeah, like, what are the forces that are pushing against that, 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:03.560 because I feel like most people, average Americans, are like, yeah, 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:05.760 it would be great if I had a cheap and 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:06.920 easy way to get around. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.400 Yeah. It's a lot of kind of political and economic 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:16.000 interactions at a variety of scales of our government and economy. Right, 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.160 I mean, I think that we could go back in 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.480 the early twentieth century and look at what were some 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.640 critical decisions that were made that kind of put us 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.200 on this path dependent which is Scott of course like 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:29.800 much exacerbated and the sort of post World War boom 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.040 and the sort of great acceleration of the nineteen seventies. Right, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.520 we could look at all these critical moments where it's 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:39.920 often a confluence of lobbying efforts by some combination of 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.560 the fossil fuel or auto industry in some cases specifically 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.480 to dismantle what prevailed in a prior era of like 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.880 streetcars in downtown urban areas, right that weren't some cases 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.400 eliminated to make more room for cars or to make 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.040 wider avenues, you know, the neighborhoods that were destroyed by highways, 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.040 the whole emergence and very high levels of government and 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.640 investment in the interstate highway system, the sort of declining 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:08.119 investment on the other hand for public transit authorities and 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.919 for the commuter rail systems, and let's not even get 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.240 into Amtrak sort of state of affairs. Right, So you know, 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.920 I don't have a conspiratorial worldview, though some times it 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.320 could be tempting, right, Yeah, But there are a lot 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.680 of decisions that took place at relatively high levels of 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.040 power authority and sort of financial investment and resource allocation 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.119 that in combination and at critical junctures of US history 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.120 where we see these inflection points that kind of both 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.200 put us initially on a path of car dependency and 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:43.520 then reinforce that over time. And my concern and just 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.080 to sort of close this point out is that we 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.960 are at such a critical juncture, you know, between the 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.040 sort of escalating climate crisis and the ways that that 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.919 is destabilizing people around the world and in the United States, 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.440 right on the one hand, and the other hand, this 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.040 exciting and very important opportunity to totally change the energetic 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.440 foundations of the world, right, like to move away from 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.720 fossil fuels once and for all, and to go, you know, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.280 to power our societies through renewable energy. But we're at 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.280 a critical juncture in terms of specifically how that renewable 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.040 energy transition is designed, who the winners and losers are, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.760 what decisions made around certain trade offs right in the 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.800 sort of policy and resource decisions. So I'm worried that 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.600 this moment, which could if we think about it, critically 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.199 organize around it, and advocate for it, maybe put us 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.600 on a slightly less car dependent path, right and use 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.359 this as a moment to create a different kind of 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:47.240 infrastructure of transportation, will instead reinforce not only car dependency itself, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.760 but with the idea that like evs as an individual 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.720 technology are the panacea, right, but actually reinforce some of 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.639 the worst trends within a car dependent status quo. And 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.520 I specifically am thinking about gargantuan cars with gargantuine batteries, 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.160 which actually take us further away from. 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:08.560 Communicals right which we're seeing like an explosion of in 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:09.720 the last year or so. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.320 I feel like it's like the EV truck and the 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:14.960 just so many of the Super. 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.080 Bowl ads last year were for these like oversized evs. 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:26.159 Oh God, why. There are reasons, terrible reasons, bad reasons 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.760 like bad faith reasons, and more understandable reasons that this 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.520 trend is happening and it is a real trend. We 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.200 currently US average battery sizes for electric vehicles are like 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.639 double where they were a decade ago, and also double 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.960 like the global average, and so they're really on their 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.480 own path right now. They are just getting larger and 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.119 larger all of those. Also, it's worth noting the larger 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.040 the battery, the more raw materials. And we'll get into 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.159 in a moment, like what our findings were with different 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.000 you know how much lithium would be required by these 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.679 different scenarios. But you know, definitely larger battery means more 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:00.600 lithium and more of anything else else that goes into 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.920 that battery. It also, by the way, means more expensive. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.360 I think the e hummers like one hundred and ten 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.960 thousand dollars. It's so expensive that it doesn't even qualify 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:10.480 for the IRA subsidies, which max out at eighty thousand 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.879 for an E suv, so they're not affordable. They're very heavy. 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.960 They're even heavier than the equivalent like a gas guzzler 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.000 suv because the battery is so heavy, which poses safety 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.280 risks to pedestrians and other drivers. So there's like they're 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.000 wrong on all counts. The real reason I think they're 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.680 being pushed is because the auto industry has a massive 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.479 need for new financial investment in retooling all of its 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.280 factories to be to create evs instead of ice vehicles, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.399 and they want a profitable sales item. And as we know, 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.000 just like with gas guzzling SUVs, e SUVs have really 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.960 like wide profit margins, like they're really profitable compared to 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.560 more compact cars. So that's their obvious interest, and then 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.400 they sell this as consumers are demanding it. Now that's 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.640 less clear to me because of how tightly connected consumer 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.680 preferences are with fossil fuel and auto industry advertising. But 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.280 you know, to the extent that consumers want these, I think, 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:06.920 you know, there are different reasons we could get into 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.080 sort of like toxic masculinity stuff, but to just put 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.320 that aside, like, I think the most valid reason that 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.320 a consumer would want a large vehicle, aside from if 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.280 they're like a construction contractor or something, is that they're 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.520 concerned about range. Right, they think a larger battery is true, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:23.440 we'll get them more range. We'll get them to three 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.800 hundred miles right on a charge. And we have a 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.399 really insufficient charging network in the US, so that that 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.240 is real, especially for folks again and those really sprawly 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.320 rural and suburban areas and excerbs where you know you 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.520 might be going long distances between a charging station. Of course, 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.639 most folks are taking really short trips on average, so 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:43.320 it's more of a mental anxiety than a sort of 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:45.720 real one, if that makes sense. But you know, the 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:48.280 way we address that is through thinking about charging stations, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.560 through thinking also about density and the distances that folks 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.080 I'm traveling, rather than filling that gap with an e hummer, 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.440 which is just not a rational way to fill that 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:57.320 social need. 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.240 Do you feel like the automotive life Bobby and industry 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:07.439 kind of in general gets less attention than the fossil 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.840 fuel guys in all of this, and is that fair? 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.280