Some Countries are Banning Fossil Fuels

I'm not a true climate change believer, but I do own two electric cars and a home that can charge them both as long as the sun is shining. My motives differ completely from the growing movement by sovereign countries to ban fossil fuels. I have noticed though that as my electric (EV) cars charge, there is a significant power demand above and beyond my typical household usage. Take my situation and exponentially multiply it as some countries mandate the move away from fossil fuels. If you're a true believer, electric car global warming may be a climate change issue for you to consider.

At last count, the following European countries, England, France, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany are making definitive moves away from the use of fossil fuels. India is also well on its way towards a similar move away from burning dead dinosaurs. The reasonable question to ask is: Are these countries really ready for this move? Can the underlying infrastructure handle the move away from fossil fuels to support the electric alternative? Given the fact that some of these nations are also shunning nuclear power, will the remaining power generation infrastructure be able to handle the coming load? Let's examine these questions as we review each nation's plans.

Saying that there will be a ban on fossil fuels is a misnomer because there are no practical, commercially viable substitutes for the fossil fuel burning aircraft, ships and military hardware, so we'll omit those. Which leaves the internal combustion engine providing the motive force for automobiles, large commercial trucks, and other types of machinery. We'll focus on those vehicles.

Great Britain isn't banning fossil fuels outright. What England is doing is banning the sales of new gas and diesel vehicles as of the year 2040. France is pursuing similar policies so I'll lump them together. So in both countries there will be legacy vehicles that will remain on the roads until such time that they are summarily banned.

Norway is making the aggressive, gutsy move to ban gas powered cars by 2025. The Norwegians plan to go completely electric for automotive power, banishing fossil fueled 'relics' completely. This is worthy of note given the fact that Norway has an natural gas offshore platform that holds the world record for the largest, heaviest object moved on the planet and can be seen from space. Norway has fossil fuels as a large portion of the country's economy. Denmark and the Netherlands plan to follow suit on a similar timetable. It should be noted that roughly a quarter of the cars on the road in Norway are already electric.

The German government passed a resolution supporting a plan to go fully electric by 2030. India, in a move similar to Germany, is also planning to ban fossil fuels by the year 2030. Unlike Germany though, India considers this to be a battle against its significant pollution problems and a fuel import cost reduction measure.

Now that we know the timetables these countries plan to follow, do they each have the infrastructure to make this evolutionary change away from fossil fueled vehicles practically work? The entire 28 member European Union (EU) produces roughly 300 to 325 Gigawatts of electricity and roughly half of that net power generation comes from fossil fuels consisting of coal, natural gas, and oil. Renewable electricity generation sources such as hydro, solar, and wind are on the rise. Nuclear power which represents roughly a quarter of electricity generation in the EU, and approximately 72% in France is becoming increasingly politically undesirable which could make this transition practically problematic.

India has just over 300 Gigawatts of total electrical power generation, about 43 Gigawatts of which comes from renewable sources. Much of India's population is rural and it is the second most populous country on the planet. The changes, social and practical, ought to be observed closely during this government mandated transition.

This aggressive evolutionary move could be a boon to traditional government run public transport systems and positively push the development of pure electric busses. A significant portion of bus transportation and utility power generation are government run which can possibly become a hidden source of future taxation bundled into public transport ticket sales and billing from home and commercial charging stations. Currently, fossil fuel sales and distribution are, for all intents and purposes, private sector run. It is very likely that taxation on fossil fuels to intentionally make it costlier to nudge the transition to electric cars will have unintended consequences as the entire fossil fuel network is intentionally and essentially forcefully disrupted as opposed to naturally transitioning via popular adoption of advancing car and electric technology. An example would be the move from flip phones to smart phones. Flip phones, through natural selection in the free market, were essentially relegated to eventual extinction. Government involvement forcing non-free market change usually has a more disruptive and often unanticipated impact.

A clear, defined, strategically and critically thought out focus on infrastructure must be at the tip, the very front, of this transition. Will a metropolitan-focused plan work in a rural environment? What will be the compromises and can they all be anticipated to stay ahead of this government induced growth in electricity demand? What are the contingencies if or when there is a disruption in utility power? Who gets to profit or benefit from the development of an electric vehicle charging infrastructure? Government? The private sector? Are the standards for EV standard and fast charging settled? How much of this future electric vehicle infrastructure development will be borne by taxpayers versus private investors? If there are no improvements in electric infrastructure, how many simultaneously charging vehicles will lead to a brownout and will that process be regulated? Questions, questions.

Many of us are early adopters of new and innovative technologies, and usually, a free, market-based individual choice to make the move away from one type of technology over to a newer, innovative technology as a personal choice is a manageable one. Government mandated change on the other hand, as a rule, is usually not well thought out and, more often than not, fraught with unintended and unnecessarily costly consequences. Good intentions by politicians are not enough, so this major transition away from fossil fuels in these countries is very worthy of social and economic note. Given all of this to ponder, will electric car global warming become a worry? Only time will tell. Good luck to us all.