I hear a lot of people insisting we need to eliminate fossil fuels within 20 or even 10 years. I’d like to explain how that is just not possible.
See these? They are combines. A typical grain farmer owns at least 2 or 3 of them. New ones cost about $500,000. Many farmers aren’t able to buy new & have ones worth $100-200,000.
NOBODY makes an EV combine
NOBODY is even close
When they do, the price tag will exceed $1M, to start. A farmer will be out of business before they can afford $2-3M to replace their existing combines.
This is a tandem. There’s a larger unit we call a super-b. These haul the harvest from the fields. A farmer might haul 150+ tandem/super-b loads at harvest.
Farmers may have 2-3 of these. New, it’s $150-200,000 for the unit, but again most have used. EV semis can’t do their work yet, but even they cost $180-250K, just for the power unit. The trailers are extra and, as with most advancements in technology, existing trailers will need adaptation or even complete replacement to accommodate new EV power units.
Let’s just get away from big farms
I hear folks talking about moving away from large farms and buying from their local small farmer. While that might be OK for your carrots, oil seeds like this canola go to secondary processing to make your oils, your bread,etc.
It is impossible to move away from large commercial farms
With the sheer volume of grain, oil seeds and legumes that are harvested every year in Canada, those market gardens couldn’t even produce a fraction of a percent of Canada’s needs, let alone maintain our exports. Diesel is required for those trains as well.
According to Statistics Canad, canola & spring wheat are our two largest crops by acreage used, taking up 36.3M acres as of 2016 in Canada
Soybeans have doubled in the last 15 yrs, and will continue to increase with more demand for vegan diets and alternative uses of soybean oils.
Farmers can make changes to utilize renewable fuels, but we are years away from the introduction of farm equipment necessary to move away from fossil fuels and decades away from the complete transition, mostly held back by the financial costs and inadequate technology.
Then there are our roads…
Without asphalt, a bituminous substance obtained as a residue in petroleum refining, road repairs will cease. Concrete roads need fossil fuel products to be sealed and are economically unsuitable for complete replacement of bitumen.
Forests will burn…
In wildland firefighting, the first vital attacks are by air with planes and helicopters and on the ground with bulldozers and water trucks.
Again, these equipment don’t have EV replacements & once they do, the costs will make it a slow transition.
There are some EV models just being introduced in the heavy equipment lines. Several companies are launching new products to replace diesel semis and heavy equipment, but their technology is young and the ranges don’t come anywhere close to the needs of those industries.
So far, EV power units (semis) are only suitable for short runs, 200-500 kms and have a price tag between $180-$250,000,
For heavy equipment, one new EV backhoe has a 4-5 hr range then needs 12 hrs to charge. On a typical work site, 3 or 4 of those would be needed to replace one diesel powered hoe.
Update: Volvo has been working hard on EV technology and has introduced smaller equipment, which will no doubt be the forerunners to great achievement from Volvo in the heavy equipment categories.
Volvo Construction Equipment Global
THE PROMISE
https://www.volvoce.com/global/en/this-is-volvo-ce/what-we-believe-in/innovation/electrifying-the-future/
“This isn’t just an aspiration. Our commitment to an electric future is clear and tangible. By mid-2020 we will begin to launch a range of electric compact excavators (EC15 to EC27) and electric wheel loaders (L20 to L28), stopping new diesel engine-based development of these models.
In parallel, we will keep working to find additional opportunities for electromobility across all product ranges and applications. We want to be able to offer our customers clean, efficient solutions that deliver on performance and productivity. We want to be able to offer responsible, sustainable products, a clear path to a better tomorrow. “
Then there are the billion $ companies standing in the way of the advancement of EV’s and I’m not talking about Big Oil. Did you know that GM made the first consumer EV in the mid-1990’s? The EV1 was a smash hit with the lucky few who leased on a trial basis.
GM took them all back & sent them off to be destroyed. A 2006 documentary “Who Killed The Electric Car” explored what happened.
25 years to get EV’s into a share of the market, in that time, they’ve gone from an average range of 100 miles to an average of 400 miles. At that rate of technological advancements, it will take decades to replace heavy equipment and decades more to work them into the market.
Haven’t you wondered why technology has been so slow? We’ve had EV’s for 25 yrs, the technology should be far more advanced by now. Now that the big companies are far more motivated, even legislated to find solutions, we are seeing technological advancements, but it is still a slow and very expensive process with a long way to go yet.
A mere look at the snails pace it is taking to get EV’s into the consumer market and acknowledgement that even their technology has a long way to go yet, should make it painfully obvious we can not end the use of fossil fuels in a decade or two.
This isn’t to say the phasing out of fossil fuels can’t be done, it’s just that this look at agricultural and touching on a couple other industries draws attention to the fact that the technology is not there, and even once it is, the financial barriers will need to be overcome.
It’s up to all of us to really think elimination of fossil fuels through, recognize we need a plan and it can’t just happen overnight.
“We know that we cannot have one solution for everybody,” he said, which is why Cummins will continue to provide a variety of power technologies — including electric, diesel, natural gas and future alternative fuels — for different applications. “We need to make sure we have the right technology for the right application,” he said. “Even if the electrified power train replaces the internal combustion engine completely, that’s still a 20- to 25-year transition period customers have to manage through. If we have good technology, they’ll want to buy it from us.”
Cummins’ Chief Executive Thomas Linebarger – Forbes August 2017
