MARGOT WEIJNEN: In this module, we will address electric cars in a policy
perspective, more specifically, the public policy
perspective, the perspective of government and public administration.
Why does public policy matter, you may wonder.
Should a technological innovation, like electric vehicles,
not find its own way into the market?
Why are government interventions needed at all?
And how should these be shaped?
In this section, we will focus on the first question--
why should government intervene to stimulate electric mobility?
In a democratic society, government intervention must be justified.
It is not enough to specify the problem to be solved
and the goal to be reached.
We must also ascertain the public interests at stake.
Public interests are, for example, concerned with public health
and safety, safeguarding the rule of law,
ensuring equal treatment of all citizens,
and protecting the weakest members of society.
Government is in place to protect public interests and safeguard public values.
Let us start now with the problem to be solved and the goal to be achieved.
Poor air and water quality, climate change, energy security,
renewable energy usage, sustainable mobility, and social welfare
are amongst the key issues to be addressed.
We see governments around the world embracing
electric mobility as a solution, or part of the solution,
to a wide range of problems where the public interest is at stake.
Which problems, then, are electric vehicles supposed to solve?
I will briefly review the various policy challenges
where electric vehicles are providing solutions.
The first one is public health policy.
Air quality is a serious challenge in many cities today.
We all know the pictures of severe smoke in megacities, like Beijing and Delhi.
But even in cases where air pollution is not visible to the naked eye,
it poses a clear and present danger to public health.
Road traffic is a major cause of urban air pollution,
as the car exhaust fumes of conventional cars, trucks,
and buses contain many compounds that affect our health, including
NOx and particulate emissions.
NOx refers to both nitric oxide and nitrogen
dioxide, which contribute to the formation of smoke and acid rain.
NOx reacts with ammonia, moisture, and other compounds
in the atmosphere to form nitric acid vapor and related particles.
Internal combustion engines on diesel and gasoline
also emit fine particulate matter in the form of soot.
The European Joint Research Center, the JRC, and the World Health Organization
have identified the main categories of particulate matter in urban air
in 51 different cities around the world.
In these studies, PM 2.5 and PM 10 are used as indicators for air quality.
PM 2.5 stands for all particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers,
and similarly, PM 10 for all particles smaller than 10 micrometers.
And as you can see in this slide, the sources of particulates in ambient air
vary around the world, depending on the type and intensity
of industrial activity, depending on the intensity of traffic
and the quality of transport fuels used, depending on the fuels used for heating
and cooking, but also depending on natural conditions,
such as salt particles in the air in coastal regions and dust
particles in desert areas.
Chronic exposure to particulates in ambient air
leads to a number of health risks.
All types of very fine particulate matter
can penetrate deeply into sensitive lung tissue
and damage it, not only causing or worsening respiratory diseases,
such as emphysema or bronchitis, but also
affecting the cardiovascular system and aggravating existing heart disease.
As you can see in the next slide, the various sources
of particulate matter in the PM 10, the 10 micrometer fraction,
show a different distribution than in the 2.5 micrometer fraction.
But on average, the research of the Joint Research Center and the World
Health Organization shows that traffic is the biggest
source of air pollution worldwide in cities, responsible for roughly 1/4
of particulate matter in the air.
So now you understand why governments around the world
are embracing electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles are emission free.
And moreover, they are silent.
And hence, bring major improvement to the ambient air
quality and the livability of the urban environment.
The importance of this improvement cannot be underestimated when you
realize that already more than 50% of the world's population lives in cities,
and that between today and 2050, the population in urban regions will
increase with 2.5 billion people.
Let us now move to climate change policy as the second policy domain.
Conventional vehicles not only emit NOx and particulates,
the combustion of hydrocarbons also results in carbon dioxide emissions.
Carbon dioxide may not be the most potent greenhouse gas,
but the massive volumes of carbon dioxide emissions
worldwide make it by far the biggest contributor to the phenomenon
of man-made global warming.
In December 2015, the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, the UNFCCC, adopted the so-called Paris Climate Agreement,
which entails a commitment to keeping the global temperature
rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels
and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further
to not more than 1.5 degrees centigrade.
As of November 2017, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the agreement.
The threat of global warming is another reason
why governments are interested in emission-free electric mobility.
So within the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement,
many countries also signed the Paris Declaration
on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change and the corresponding Call to Action.
These countries strive to have at least 20% of all vehicles on the road
to be electrically powered by 2030, which is not very far away.
Now you may object that electric vehicles may
cause indirect emissions at the site where electricity is produced,
and you're right.
You should realize, however, that it is a lot more cost efficient to remove CO2
from the flue gas of a large power plant than to handle the distributed
emissions of millions of vehicles on the road.
And by the way, even if electricity is made from coal,
the well-to-wheel emissions of fully electric vehicles
are still lower than those of vehicles using fossil fuels internal combustion
engines.
Moreover, as more and more electricity is
being generated from renewable energy resources, the carbon
footprint of the electric power system itself should gradually be decreasing,
which brings us to the next policy perspective, the energy policy
perspective.
All societies are powered by energy, and the share
of electricity in energy and use is increasing.
Besides the environmental quality of the electricity production mixed
with the risk of adverse public health and climate change effects,
governments are also concerned about the long term security of energy supply.
And these concerns combined explain why governments stimulate
the exploitation of renewable energy resources, especially hydro, solar,
and wind.
Electricity from these sources is emission-free in both generation
and end use.
But unfortunately, the supply of most renewable energy sources is variable.
Hydro power is subject to seasonal fluctuations
and may suffer from years of drought.
Solar and wind energy do not only vary by season,
but also show strong daily fluctuations, and even shorter fluctuations.
In other words, a power system with a large share of variable renewable
sources needs a lot of flexible standby capacity to cover for periods when sun,
wind, and hydro cannot deliver.
However, standby generation capacity is often gas-powered,
which is not only expensive, it also eliminates
part of the environmental benefit of the renewable power system.
What's the alternative then?
The alternative is to still solicit demand response
from the electricity and users.
The concept here is that variations in the supply of electricity
from renewable sources are matched by flexibility in electricity demand.
This strategy requires substantial demand elasticity from the end users.
The average household in Western economies,
however, has very limited demand elasticity.
And the trend is that the elasticity is decreasing rather than increasing,
as more and more household functions rely on electricity.
And now, this is where electric vehicles come in.
A huge flexibility potential on the demand side can, in the future,
be unleashed by controlled charging of their batteries--
that is, in response to the fluctuating supply
of electricity from renewable sources.
This strategy is also known as grid-to-vehicle theory, more
smart charging.
And at the same time, the combined van batteries of electric vehicles
represent the substantial storage potential, so that--
the other way around--
vehicle-to-grid services are also possible.
The batteries can supply power to the grid
during times when renewable sources fall short.
In this vision of the future, which obviously requires
a lot of ICT support, electric vehicles are
seen as active components of the power system.
This would entail a revolution, both for the power system
and the transport system, which are, with ICT infrastructure,
merging into one new infrastructure system, which brings us
to the transport and mobility system, the domain of transport and mobility
policy, as the next policy domain.
Transport of persons and goods is a key factor of economic value creation
in any society.
The transport policymaker will want to know
if electric vehicles will be able to perform the same duties
as conventional vehicles do.
Will electric vehicles change mobility patterns, and how?
What refueling infrastructure will be required?
Just battery re-charging for battery electric vehicles, or also hydrogen
fueling for fuel cell electric vehicles?
Will it be one of the two, or both?
In modern societies, car use is considered
a key element of individual freedom, and any interference with this freedom
is politically sensitive.
Yet, policymakers are challenged to accommodate future mobility needs
in a responsible way that is efficient, clean, affordable, inclusive, et
cetera.
But using a car does not necessarily imply owning a car.
In Western societies, the young urban generation
is more and more inclined to car sharing and to using
Uber-type services, if they are not walking,
biking, or using public transport.
And this trend may, in the future, even be reinforced by autonomous--
that is, self-driving-- electric vehicles.
In that case, cities may be able to reduce
the space reserved for automotive mobility, including parking space.
Anyway, the future of mobility with electric cars holds a lot of promise
for the livability of the urban environment.
Livability and accessibility in turn are important factors
for businesses in deciding on a favorable location, which brings us
to the next and final policy perspective on electric vehicles, which
is the economic policy perspective.
Economic growth is probably the most important objective of economic policy
in order to create more welfare for society.
It is, amongst others, accomplished through stimulating knowledge
development, innovation, and entrepreneurship, which
can trigger productivity improvements and the establishment of new firms
that create new employment opportunities.
Industry policy aimed at enhancing the performance of established industry
sectors and creating new growth opportunities
may be another component of economic policy.
In view of the challenges posed by climate change and a transition
to a sustainable energy system, the new economic policy mantra is green growth.
It is in this perspective that policies to support electric mobility
may be designed.
Just as an example, in its research and development programs,
the European Commission has, for years, been
striving to establish a strong European technology
position in battery technology.
And recently, in October 2017, the European Commissioner for Energy,
Maros Sefcovic, announced he is making billions
of euros available to support the establishment of large scale battery
manufacturing facilities in Europe, with which he
aims to create 4 to 5 million new jobs.
It's time to wrap up.
Electric cars seem to solve a great variety of problems
where public interests are clearly at stake,
such as public health, climate change mitigation, energy security, mobility,
and a prospering economy.
The table here gives a summary of the policy domains
and the corresponding policy goals, which
we have just discussed, and indicates some of the specific policy targets
to be reached.
It is, however, difficult to design policy instruments in support
of more than one specific policy goal.
Another challenge is that government is not a monolithic institution.
In the introduction of electric vehicles,
not only different policy domains are involved, but also different
levels of government--
at the national level, at the local, and at supranational levels.
And this situation, as we will see, results in a variety
of policy instruments being applied.
I hope to see you in the next module.