Advanced Energy Perspectives

After nearly two years of pandemic paralysis, the new worry about the U.S. economy is inflation. After a long period of stability, prices are up, taking a bite out of household spending power. And as usual when prices rise, some of the most visible evidence can be found at the gas pump and in heating bills. But the spike in these energy prices shouldn’t be thought of as inflation at all. Rather, it’s a function of volatility, which is an inherent feature of fossil fuels. The answer to this price volatility is not found in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, gasoline-tax holidays, or interest-rate increases. The solution is advanced energy.

What electric school buses do for air quality is well known. Swapping diesel buses for electric buses eliminates these vehicles as sources of local air pollution, which affects the schoolchildren who ride them every day as well as the communities they travel through. But investing in electric school buses also contributes to the economy. With the funding for school bus electrification provided in the recently passed infrastructure bill, that economic boost is on the way. 

In the 1920s the United States dominated the automobile market, led by Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Co. Before that, cars were difficult to make and expensive to buy. But thanks to Ford’s Model T and (then) newfangled assembly line production, the demand for cars became overwhelming, driving production into high gear, putting Americans to work with higher wages, and lowering the cost of these vehicles. This phenomenon occurs with most new technologies, from the desktop computer to the toaster. So, it is no surprise that we see the same phenomenon happening with electric vehicles (EVs) nearly 100 years later. Question is: Is the U.S. prepared to dominate the EV market the way it did in Henry Ford’s time?

Last month, President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators announced an agreement around the framework of an infrastructure deal. This comes after several rounds of bipartisan negotiations between the White House and the Senate – first with Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the ranking member of the committee taking the lead on surface transportation reauthorization in the Senate, and then with a bipartisan coalition led by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Rob Portman (R-OH). While there is much to debate in what is – and isn’t – included in the package, what is clear, from a new AEE study, is that the way to get the biggest bang for the federal infrastructure buck is investing in advanced energy.

This week, all eyes are on the Silver State as a much-anticipated clean energy bill moves through the legislative process on a short timeline. Taking on electric vehicles, transmission, wholesale electricity markets, energy efficiency, energy storage, integrated resource planning, economic development tariffs, net metering, and more, State Senator Chris Brooks’s SB 448 “New Energy Economy Act” is poised to inject new economic life into Nevada by harnessing the clean energy transition. With the session scheduled to end May 31, time is short to get this landmark legislation over the finish line.