Don’t let hybrids muddle our path to net-zero: EVs must prevail

livemint.com:

An Economist article on 7 February 2024 by Elizabeth Lees presented a pictorial representation of the world’s heat map over the past 60 years as compared to pre-Industrial Age temperatures. The latter half of 2023 showed a 2° Celsius heating above the pre-industrial level, and while it was an El Niño year of additional warming, this illustrates the climate-change disaster that we are facing today. The only way the earth will survive is if we stop using fossil fuels as a source of energy at the earliest.

Electricity generation has started moving from coal, oil and gas to solar, wind and hydro power; nuclear energy will also become another major source of fossil-free power generation in the future. A promising aspect is that the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources reduces the cost of electricity. The only hurdle here is that solar and wind-based green electricity generation does not take place 24x7 and cannot be controlled to match instantaneous demand; one would need energy storage to balance supply and demand.

This adds to the overall cost of electricity use, but power-storage costs are also falling rapidly with emerging solutions. While electricity at homes, offices and industries could witness a quick shift to green and renewable sources, transportation will continue to depend on fossil fuels. Most vehicles use petrol and diesel.

This also pollutes the environment severely, making the air unbreathable in many cities across the world during busy hours. Fortunately, electric vehicles (EVs), which do not pollute and could use green electricity for battery charging, are becoming economically viable as an alternative to combustion-engine vehicles. The shift to EVs is real.