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California just started the clock on a future that a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable: dealerships full of nothing but zero-emissions cars.

On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered regulators to phase out the internal combustion engine and ban the sale of all new gasoline-fueled cars after 2035. With that, California became the first state in America to impose such a prohibition and delivered the biggest jolt yet to automakers already under pressure to give up fossil fuels and deliver a new generation of electric vehicles.

While for now the industry depends on gasoline-powered SUVs and pickups for most of its profit, traditional automakers are investing billions of dollars in electrification and announcing new EV models — with startups such as Rivian Automotive and Lucid Motors Inc. right on their heels. California’s ban ups the ante.

“There’s an arms race going on here,” said Mary Nichols, chair of the powerful California Air Resources Board that regulates the emissions of everything from oil refineries to power plants to cars.

Read More: California to Ban New Gasoline Cars by 2035, a First in U.S. (1)

Newsom’s announcement adds to worldwide momentum this week in the fight against climate change, coming less than a day after China pledged to go carbon neutral by 2060 — a bold move from the world’s largest polluter that, while still 40 years out, caught environmentalists by surprise. California is joining more than a dozen countries, including the U.K., France and Canada, that are phasing out the internal combustion engine, BloombergNEF data show. The U.K. is actually considering whether to push forward its ban to 2035.

What California wants would be a huge leap for the auto industry. Less than 8% of new vehicles registered in California through the first half of the year were electric ones. And in 2035, BNEF projects about half of U.S. passenger vehicle sales will be battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in 2035.

Impetus for Change

The target is “aggressive,” but it has the potential to speed the pace of EV adoption among automakers, said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst for IHS Markit.

“If it actually happens, it does create a reason and impetus to make change happen faster,” Brinley said. If “you have the opportunity for volume there, and you’re going to be able to sell the car, then you can put more money into investing and increasing your capacity faster.”

Read More: So You Decided on an Electric Car. Now What?

Newsom’s order — signed on the hood of the forthcoming electric Ford Mustang Mach-E — will inevitably set the tone for states across America. Not only is California the largest car market in the U.S., it’s also one of the nation’s biggest gasoline consumers and the world’s second-largest EV market, behind only China. The strength of its transportation policy has always hinged on the fact that automakers, other like-minded states and often the nation have tended to follow suit.

The ban is “a kiss of death for gasoline and petroleum as California tends to be a trendsetter,” said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for fuel-pricing firm GasBuddy.

Key questions remain, including whether California will allow plug-in hybrid sales (used gasoline car sales will be allowed) — and whether the rest of the U.S. will actually join. Much of the latter hinges on the upcoming presidential election. While the Trump administration has aggressively fought California’s efforts to squeeze emissions out of transportation, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has advocated for the widespread adoption of electric cars and a national charging network to power them.

There is also the question of enforcement: Combustion engine phase-outs in other parts of the world have lacked the necessary teeth to be effective, such as penalties for dealerships who break the rules and sell gasoline-fueled cars. Newsom’s executive order doesn’t lay out exactly how California will see to it that only zero-emissions cars are eventually sold.

Still, the Golden State has long been a champion of hybrid and electric cars powered by batteries and fuel cells, with aggressive targets that have pushed and prodded automakers to comply. Its zero-emissions vehicle, or ZEV, program requires automakers to sell electric cars and trucks and has been adopted by several states including New York, New Jersey and Oregon.

The ZEV regulation has allowed home-grown companies like Palo Alto-based Tesla Inc. to earn revenue selling emission credits to automakers who can’t meet the mandate. And while 2035 has long been a goal for California to reach zero emissions, Newsom is doubling down on that time line as the state confronts the grim consequences of climate change: heat waves and massive wildfires that have scorched millions of acres and choked much of the West Coast with toxic air pollution.

The 2035 deadline “gives everyone who works in transportation — including the fuel suppliers, planners, manufacturers and fleet managers — a real target to work towards,” Nichols said.

Anyone who thinks Newsom’s goal is symbolic, only cementing where California was already headed, is mistaken, said BloombergNEF analyst Nick Albanese. “Despite its ambitious policies, I do not think California was on track to hit a 100% passenger EV sales share in 2035 before this announcement,” he said.

Transition Years

Nichols said that the next 15 years will be ones of transition, as automakers put forward more cars, consumers become more comfortable driving electric and the cost of batteries drops. Tesla’s “Battery Day” on Tuesday didn’t go unnoticed in Sacramento. Nichols noted the electric carmaker’s plan to halve the cost of batteries and, consequently, build EVs that more people can afford to buy.

“It’s an electric race to get to cheaper and more effective batteries, and it’s one that manufacturers around the world are competing in,” Nichols said. “That’s the prize: the zero-emission vehicle that’s affordable to everybody.”

Not everyone is happy. Questions remain about charging infrastructure, and how low-income consumers will be able to afford electric vehicles that are largely associated with coastal wealth. Roughly 2 million new passenger cars and light-duty vehicles are sold in California each year, and the California New Car Dealers Association has several questions about how the directive will be met.

Dealers Concerned

“Banning new non-ZEV vehicles and limiting choice, even 15 years from now, is significantly more difficult than striving to achieve the goals the governor has set forth,” Brian Maas, of the CNCDA, said by email. “While we support the state’s goals to combat climate change, there are many questions and factors that need to be thoughtfully considered.”

Newsom’s executive order tasks Nichols’s agency with writing the regulations. There may be some some wiggle room in how automakers can achieve the state’s goal. In the past, the air board has made changes when it was clear the market and the technology couldn’t match the rules.

“There’s still some things to figure out, but it’s a significant direction to lay down,” Brinley said.

— With assistance by Jeffrey Bair, Michael Jeffers, and Kara Wetzel

Matt Peterson, a senior Amazon exec, joined the “Axios Re:Cap” podcast to explain the thinking behind the tech and commerce giant’s climate venture capital fund, which rolled out its first investments on Thursday.

Why it matters: The fund, $2 billion to start, is beginning to invest on the heels of Amazon’s late 2019 pledge to be net-zero emissions by 2040.

The big picture: Peterson, their director of new initiatives, made the case that today’s clean tech VC investing isn’t akin to the meltdown of a decade ago.

• One reason, he said, is that it will help Amazon and other companies obtain new tech to fulfill emissions pledges.
• “The way we are approaching this is from a demand perspective, not a supply perspective. We are asking ourselves, what does Amazon need as a company to decarbonize, then we are finding companies that produce those products,” Peterson said.
• “We’re coming at it from the standpoint of, we will be a customer of this technology today if we can find the right company, and I think that’s a much more sustainable way to invest.”

The intrigue: He said one kind of important tech they will be decarbonized aviation. “That is one of our biggest challenges, and there is really nothing out there today that can address that,” Peterson said.

• Electrified jets that could meet the needs of their operations are likely decades away, he said.

Go deeper: Amazon defends working with oil companies to reach its zero-carbon goal

Battery electric vehicles have been the ray of hope for automotive sales during the pandemic, rising to 4.7% of the market in the UK. In Europe, JATO figures put the percentage of BEVs, Hybrid EVs and Plug-in Hybrid EVs at 18% of total registrations in July. But despite the burgeoning sales, as I discussed a few weeks ago, there’s a lot of negativity about EVs, fueled by fear of change and possibly by those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Huge arguments ensue online about EVs, so here are four of the most frequent themes, and why they are missing the mark by an electric mile.

EVs Are Made with Polluting Minerals Mined by Children

Hearing this argument from anyone proposing that vehicles running on oil-based fuel are more eco-friendly than EVs makes you wonder whether they ever watch the news. The atrocious spill in Mauritius is just the latest in a very long list of disasters caused by the oil industry, any of which are far worse than the lithium mine image that is regularly trotted out as it if proves once and for all that EVs are EV-il. Except that the picture isn’t even a lithium mine – it’s a copper mine.

However, there’s no need to resort to “whataboutery” when addressing this criticism. There are two main sources of lithium, and mines are only one of them. The other is brine water. In other words, the sea. The vast majority (87%) of lithium comes from this source, which involves a lengthy evaporation process that doesn’t involve child labor at all. There is absolutely loads of lithium around, with vast reserves in Chile, Australia and China, so we’re unlikely to run out. And you can bet none of these people complaining about the lithium in EVs have complained about its use in the over six billion mobile phones in ownership in the world today, nor the over a billion laptops.

Cobalt is the other rare mineral that gets people wound up about EVs, and there are some valid concerns about its extraction in DR Congo in particular. However, Cobalt has been used in most lithium ion batteries for decades, so as argued above, if you’re going to criticize EVs, stop using a mobile phone or a laptop first. However, there’s a solid financial reason why EV makers are reducing and eventually hope to eliminate cobalt from their batteries – it’s hugely expensive, and one of the main contributors to the comparatively high purchase price of EVs (see below). Tesla
TSLA is already planning a shift away from cobalt in batteries, and there are several other no-cobalt or low-cobalt battery designs under development. Cobalt’s days are numbered.

EVs Are A Fire Hazard

A recent recall of the Ford Kuga PHEV due to battery fire risk has really stoked the myth that EVs are too flammable – if you’ll forgive the pun. Another popular follow-up is mentioning the infamous crashing of a Rimac Concept_One electric hypercar by TV presenter Richard Hammond during an episode of The Grand Tour. This rather misses the point that he didn’t crash because it was an EV, but because he wasn’t sufficiently good a driver to control the vehicle. He was driving again a month later, anyway, but could well have been dead if it was a petrol vehicle, which would have gone down in a ball of flames rather than the slower burning of an EV.

It is true that lithium ion batteries have very different fire characteristics to fossil fuel engines. Lithium ion batteries do produce quite poisonous fluoride gases when on fire, but they take much longer to get going, giving the driver a considerably better chance of getting clear before the conflagration really gets going. They do burn for a long time, and are hard to put out, requiring special training for firefighters. The real question, however, is how often EVs really catch fire. The isolated cases of Teslas burning spontaneously in California make for inflammatory photos, but they prove nothing.

Let’s look at the figures. China has ordered more EV safety checks, but that was after only 40 EV fires in 2018. This was across a fleet of 1.2 million EVs in China in 2018, ie one fire for every 30,000 vehicles. Putting that in perspective, in the US, from 2014 to 2016 there was an average of 171,500 highway vehicle fires according to a report by FEMA. There were around 269 million cars in the USA in 2016, meaning that one in 1,569 fossil fuel cars caught fire in 2016 – nearly 20x as many as EVs in China in 2018. There were also 2.9 deaths per 1,000 highway fires, so fossil fuel cars are not only far more likely to catch fire than EVs, they’re far more likely to kill you as a result too.

EV Batteries Only Last A Few Years

This is one of the most prevalent myths and one of the easiest to debunk. Yes, your smartphone battery degrades considerably after a couple of years. But you charge that every day, and the average driver will only charge their EV a few times a month. EVs also charge in a much smarter fashion, only replenishing depleted cells, which distributes the load across many thousands of cells that make up the whole pack. Data gleaned from lots of Tesla owners has shown a mere 10% average battery degradation after over 160,000 miles. Most fossil cars are on the scrap heap long before that kind of mileage.

This is why the majority of manufacturers now offer a battery warranty that’s usually around 100,000 miles or eight years for 70% capacity. They wouldn’t do that if they seriously thought many batteries wouldn’t last that long – it would cost them a fortune. So, no, an EV that’s a few years old will have almost the range it had when new, and there won’t be a huge problem recycling a load of dead EV batteries either. Most EVs will still be going strong decades from now.

EVs Are Too Expensive

I’ve left this one until last, because a lot of people will come back to it when all else fails. On the one hand, it’s true. With EV batteries still taking up around 30% of the cost of an EV, and not being a component that a fossil fuel car even has, EVs are more expensive. They’re usually at least £10,000 ($13,000) more than an equivalent fossil fuel car, and it’s even worse in the second-hand market, because EVs hold their value much better. This is a myth for another time – that EVs are worth nothing used because the batteries are shot, when in fact the opposite is the case. The Tesla Model S has the highest residual value of any used car in Germany, for example, retaining 9% more value after three years than any other brand, with a whopping 58.5% retention. As a result, since decent EVs have only been around for less than a decade, the cheapest end of the second-hand market doesn’t even exist yet.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand – the cost when new. It’s missing the key factor. EVs are coming down in price as batteries get cheaper, but even before that reduction you have to take into account the much lower running costs. Charged at home, a decent EV will cost 3-4p (4-5c) a mile in electricity, whereas even a really frugal fossil fuel car capable of 60 miles per (British) gallon will be more like 10p (13c) a mile, and we all know that about town the fuel consumption is a lot worse, where EVs are actually better. Obviously in some countries like the US, gasoline is a lot cheaper, but cars are generally less economical to match. The average car in the UK does 7,000 miles a year, so you will be saving hundreds in fuel alone every year, and thousands if you drive more than average. Then there are the savings from far simpler or even unnecessary servicing, lower company car tax (in the UK, it’s zero for the first year), lower vehicle tax (again, zero in the UK), and reduced need for brake pads and discs because of regenerative braking. So you will pay more up front, but you will save loads after that, and when it comes time to sell, you’ll get more second hand value back than a fossil fuel car. In other words, EVs might be more expensive to buy, but they could well be cheaper over 3-4 years of ownership.

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These are just a selection of favorites from a massive list of arguments you will be involved in if you get into conversations about EVs on virtually any social media platform – Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn. It would be possible to write a weekly article on this subject alone. There’s even a satirical bingo card floating around social media sending up the common clichés. So this is definitely a subject to return to in a future week. Watch this space.

If you engage in a lot of conversations about electric vehicles on social media, you start to see common themes emerging. The national grid can’t cope; they catch fire spontaneously; they can only drive 50 miles, particularly in winter; they’re built using rare minerals mined by children in the Congo; all the electricity required to charge them comes from coal anyway – and so on. Rather than rebuffing each one of these in turn (perhaps a future article), there’s a deeper underlying reason for all this hate. It’s not the (admittedly high) price that is why people aren’t running with arms open and buying EVs in droves yet; there appears to be a concerted hate campaign against them. But why, and where is it coming from?

The high price is something that can’t be denied. Most EVs are still at least £10,000 ($13,000) more expensive than equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) models. That is a major disincentive for purchase, despite the grants in lots of countries, particularly France. But the resistance you see online, which is rather reminiscent of social media-fuelled political arguments, isn’t usually about the price – it seems to be driven by a fundamental dislike for change, and the lack of EV options for different vehicular needs. There are lots of luxury EV SUVs, but surprisingly no estate cars / station wagons at all, for example.

“The reason there is not so much choice in the EV market is because existing manufacturers don’t want to sell electric cars,” says Rupert Mitchell, Chief Strategy Officer at Chinese EV manufacturer WM Motor. Mitchell argues that it’s no surprise that the major players in the EV space are not incumbent manufacturers, but disruptive newcomers like his company and Tesla
TSLA
. Although EV sales are growing fast – up 175% year-on-year in the UK by July 2020, for example – they’re still less than 5% of overall car sales in Britain. For most incumbents, that means at least 95% of their sales are still ICE, so there are only limited incentives for creating electric platforms.

With 95% of your cars still being ICE, you’re going to continue to focus heavily on developing that platform, rather than putting major funds towards upstart new electric ones. There are also issues with automotive industry workers and their powerful unions being worried about losing their jobs. The workers can be retrained, but EV manufacturing requires fewer people. China is less affected by this, because its ICE car industry was rather poor compared to the US or Europe’s, and therefore it has lots of promising EVs that are mostly still for domestic consumption. But a lot of China’s automotive industry is based on joint ventures, many of which are with VW. So even in China the EV focus is on entrepreneurial startups rather than incumbents.

A further reluctance comes from the dealerships. A recent UK blind buyer survey revealed that most manufacturers with EVs available had very poor online purchasing systems, and constantly tried to funnel buyers to their showrooms instead. There, salespeople had very little knowledge of EVs, making it genuinely hard to actually buy one. Anecdotal accounts of showrooms in the US allege salespeople there try to actively discourage EV sales, instead directing customers back to ICE. This is likely because car sales margins are traditionally low, and they make their money selling aftermarket service packages – which are almost not needed with EVs, particularly when they are fully connected, allowing remote management and diagnostics. EV manufacturers therefore don’t just have to change the technology itself but fight the incumbent sales model that simply doesn’t fit the low-maintenance nature of EVs.

However, it’s clear that the reluctance of incumbent manufacturers to address the EV market with gusto has left the door wide open for Tesla in particular, as well as other newcomers, who don’t have that baggage to contend with. When Tesla became the most valuable car company in June, it felt like it could be a blip. But Tesla’s shares had increased in value nearly six-fold year-on-year by August 12^th, and the company is now clearly ahead of its next biggest competitor Toyota – in fact 38% more valuable. It’s ironic that Toyota doesn’t have a battery electric vehicle strategy at all, instead focusing on hybrids and fuel cell electric vehicles, which show no signs whatsoever of being popular in the consumer vehicle space. Tesla has not only built innovative vehicles on brand new EV-only platforms, but also its own refuelling network and a sales model that eschews traditional showrooms, with a very slick online experience.

However, EVs aren’t all about taking all your fossil fuel cars and making them electric. There’s also a significant shift in the way we transport ourselves, which has been further accentuated by the Covid pandemic. In the UK, electric scooters have been fast-tracked with government funding to provide a potential green solution to personal city transportation. Companies like IRP Systems are focusing on drivetrains for this emerging market. “There’s a separation between urban mobility versus long-distance,” says Moran Price, CEO of IRP Systems. “We’re seeing a shift to personal commuting, and a jump towards electric two-wheel platforms.” This also opens up a possible door for countries where two-wheel transport is more the norm, like India. Take a look at the electric motorcycles available in India already, and you will be surprised by how many options there are as well as their low price. These could be very promising imports. Without incumbents, this market faces much less resistance because it’s entirely new, rather than fighting against powerful existing players that want to protect their lucrative corporate models.

For cars, however, there will be years of struggle against the hate campaigns. It’s clear that the uphill struggle for EVs isn’t about whether they are any good, or specifically tackling the negative arguments against them cited at the beginning of this article. If you’ve driven an EV, with an open mind, you will have realised how effortless and smooth it is. EVs are not perfect, and they do cost more, but in many ways EVs are now just better than their fossil fuel forebears – cleaner, requiring less maintenance, faster, more reliable, even more spacious. That’s not going to be enough for EVs to succeed, however. There are a lot of vested interests in fossil fuel vehicles – not just the fuel industry itself, or even the manufacturers, but also the showroom networks and service centres. This is what needs to be addressed for EVs to succeed, and it will take quite a bit of effort to do so.

If you engage in a lot of conversations about electric vehicles on social media, you start to see common themes emerging. The national grid can’t cope; they catch fire spontaneously; they can only drive 50 miles, particularly in winter; they’re built using rare minerals mined by children in the Congo; all the electricity required to charge them comes from coal anyway – and so on. Rather than rebuffing each one of these in turn (perhaps a future article), there’s a deeper underlying reason for all this hate. It’s not the (admittedly high) price that is why people aren’t running with arms open and buying EVs in droves yet; there appears to be a concerted hate campaign against them. But why, and where is it coming from?

The high price is something that can’t be denied. Most EVs are still at least £10,000 ($13,000) more expensive than equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) models. That is a major disincentive for purchase, despite the grants in lots of countries, particularly France. But the resistance you see online, which is rather reminiscent of social media-fuelled political arguments, isn’t usually about the price – it seems to be driven by a fundamental dislike for change, and the lack of EV options for different vehicular needs. There are lots of luxury EV SUVs, but surprisingly no estate cars / station wagons at all, for example.

WM Motor is a promising EV startup in China, that is yet to break out of the local market.

© 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP

“The reason there is not so much choice in the EV market is because existing manufacturers don’t want to sell electric cars,” says Rupert Mitchell, Chief Strategy Officer at Chinese EV manufacturer WM Motor. Mitchell argues that it’s no surprise that the major players in the EV space are not incumbent manufacturers, but disruptive newcomers like his company and Tesla TSLA . Although EV sales are growing fast – up 175% year-on-year in the UK by July 2020, for example – they’re still less than 5% of overall car sales in Britain. For most incumbents, that means at least 95% of their sales are still ICE, so there are only limited incentives for creating electric platforms.

With 95% of your cars still being ICE, you’re going to continue to focus heavily on developing that platform, rather than putting major funds towards upstart new electric ones. There are also issues with automotive industry workers and their powerful unions being worried about losing their jobs. The workers can be retrained, but EV manufacturing requires fewer people. China is less affected by this, because its ICE car industry was rather poor compared to the US or Europe’s, and therefore it has lots of promising EVs that are mostly still for domestic consumption. But a lot of China’s automotive industry is based on joint ventures, many of which are with VW. So even in China the EV focus is on entrepreneurial startups rather than incumbents.

A further reluctance comes from the dealerships. A recent UK blind buyer survey revealed that most manufacturers with EVs available had very poor online purchasing systems, and constantly tried to funnel buyers to their showrooms instead. There, salespeople had very little knowledge of EVs, making it genuinely hard to actually buy one. Anecdotal accounts of showrooms in the US allege salespeople there try to actively discourage EV sales, instead directing customers back to ICE. This is likely because car sales margins are traditionally low, and they make their money selling aftermarket service packages – which are almost not needed with EVs, particularly when they are fully connected, allowing remote management and diagnostics. EV manufacturers therefore don’t just have to change the technology itself but fight the incumbent sales model that simply doesn’t fit the low-maintenance nature of EVs.

Tesla’s shares have enjoyed a nearly six-fold increase in value over the last year.

Statista

However, it’s clear that the reluctance of incumbent manufacturers to address the EV market with gusto has left the door wide open for Tesla in particular, as well as other newcomers, who don’t have that baggage to contend with. When Tesla became the most valuable car company in June, it felt like it could be a blip. But Tesla’s shares had increased in value nearly six-fold year-on-year by August 12^th, and the company is now clearly ahead of its next biggest competitor Toyota – in fact 38% more valuable. It’s ironic that Toyota doesn’t have a battery electric vehicle strategy at all, instead focusing on hybrids and fuel cell electric vehicles, which show no signs whatsoever of being popular in the consumer vehicle space. Tesla has not only built innovative vehicles on brand new EV-only platforms, but also its own refuelling network and a sales model that eschews traditional showrooms, with a very slick online experience.

Tesla is now 38% more valuable than its nearest competitor, Toyota.

Statista

However, EVs aren’t all about taking all your fossil fuel cars and making them electric. There’s also a significant shift in the way we transport ourselves, which has been further accentuated by the Covid pandemic. In the UK, electric scooters have been fast-tracked with government funding to provide a potential green solution to personal city transportation. Companies like IRP Systems are focusing on drivetrains for this emerging market. “There’s a separation between urban mobility versus long-distance,” says Moran Price, CEO of IRP Systems. “We’re seeing a shift to personal commuting, and a jump towards electric two-wheel platforms.” This also opens up a possible door for countries where two-wheel transport is more the norm, like India. Take a look at the electric motorcycles available in India already, and you will be surprised by how many options there are as well as their low price. These could be very promising imports. Without incumbents, this market faces much less resistance because it’s entirely new, rather than fighting against powerful existing players that want to protect their lucrative corporate models.

For cars, however, there will be years of struggle against the hate campaigns. It’s clear that the uphill struggle for EVs isn’t about whether they are any good, or specifically tackling the negative arguments against them cited at the beginning of this article. If you’ve driven an EV, with an open mind, you will have realised how effortless and smooth it is. EVs are not perfect, and they do cost more, but in many ways EVs are now just better than their fossil fuel forebears – cleaner, requiring less maintenance, faster, more reliable, even more spacious. That’s not going to be enough for EVs to succeed, however. There are a lot of vested interests in fossil fuel vehicles – not just the fuel industry itself, or even the manufacturers, but also the showroom networks and service centres. This is what needs to be addressed for EVs to succeed, and it will take quite a bit of effort to do so.

• Wind and solar were the only power sources to show growth year on year, despite a 3% drop in demand.
• Six former US EPA administrators are calling for a “reset” at the agency.
• Siemens to test measuring EV charging consumption in New York with a Meter Integrated Charger.
• Arcadia Power is committed to making clean energy work for the planet and your bank account — all without changing your utility company. Sign up to receive your $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Wind and solar growth

Wind and solar reached a record-high market share of 10% of global electricity in the first half of 2020, up by 14% compared to the same period in 2019, according to a new report from think tank Ember, which focuses on accelerating the global energy transition. This is despite a 3% drop in power demand globally due to the impact of COVID-19. Wind and solar have doubled their market share since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

Many key countries now generate around a tenth of their electricity from wind and solar: China (10%), the US (12%), India (10%), Japan (10%), Brazil (10%), and Turkey (13%). The EU and UK were substantially higher with 21% and 33%, respectively; Germany rose to 42%. (Russia is the largest country to so far shun wind and solar, with just 0.2% of its electricity coming from them.) 

This year, for the first time, the world’s coal fleet ran at less than half of its capacity. Coal dropped by 8.3% in the global electricity mix from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2020. The drop was led by major falls in the US (-31%) and the Europe Union (-32%). For the first time ever, the existing global coal fleet ran at less than half capacity. In the US, existing coal plants ran at less than a third of their capacity (32%). In contrast, China’s coal fell only 2%, meaning its share of global coal generation rose to 54% so far this year, up from 50% in 2019 and 44% in 2015. 

But here’s the important part: The global electricity transition is off track for 1.5 degrees.

Coal needs to fall by 13% every year this decade, and even in the face of a global pandemic, coal generation has only reduced 8% in the first half of 2020. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 1.5 degree scenarios shows coal needs to fall to just 6% of global generation by 2030, from 33% in the first half of 2020. The IPCC shows in all scenarios that most of coal’s replacement is with wind and solar. 

EPA reform

Six former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrators from both Democratic and Republican administrations joined a prominent group of former EPA officials to raise a bipartisan call for a new forward-looking direction at the EPA in an open letter.

Administrators Lee M. Thomas, William K. Reilly, Carol M. Browner, Christine Todd Whitman, Lisa P. Jackson, and Gina McCarthy discuss their concerns about the far-reaching impacts of climate change, new toxic hazards and other emerging health risks, and the disproportionate burdens that pollution and global warming place on lower-wealth communities, communities of color, and indigenous people. They write:

As EPA approaches its 50th anniversary this December, we believe the time has come to reset the future course for EPA in a new, forward-looking direction to address the environmental challenges we face today and those that lie ahead.

They cite a new report, “Resetting the Course of EPA,” from the Environmental Protection Network, a bipartisan group of more than 500 former EPA senior managers and employees. It provides a comprehensive set of recommendations to guide the EPA in addressing the most significant and emerging threats to public health and the environment.

It covers 10 action areas, from reducing emissions from vehicles, to safeguarding drinking water, to restoring science as the backbone of agency decision-making, to elevating environmental justice in all aspects of EPA’s work.

Siemens’ MIC

Siemens eMobility solutions announced this week that it will field test new EV charging technology, a Meter Integrated Charger (MIC), in New York. The MICs measure the quantity of electricity needed to charge EVs so that drivers, utilities, and others can track and manage consumption. The standard utility meter can be used to record the energy usage, and the meter will send the data back to the utility, which can then be shared with the customer. The data could be used to bill the EV on a separate rate in the future.

German multinational conglomerate Siemens is partnering with New York utility Con Edison to recruit up to 20 residential customers in New York with smart meters to participate in the project.

John DeBoer, head of Siemens eMobility solutions and Future Grid Business in North America, said:

Currently, for most customers who own EVs, EV energy consumption is mixed in with all other usage in the owner’s electricity bill, making it impossible to identify the energy costs from charging the EV versus the home’s air conditioning or lighting. With the MIC, the power used for the EV will show up separately. Siemens is working to promote EV adoption with our full range of charging equipment and solutions, and this could be a game-changer for EV drivers in understanding their fuel savings when they switch to EVs.

Con Edison will collect information on the charging habits of the participating customers and share it with Siemens. The project is supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

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