Electrification [2022]

The future of energy is electricity.

This may sound strange, given that electricity has existed in our homes for decades. What I mean is that in the future, most if not all forms of energy consumption will come from electricity. The process of getting from where we are today to this more electrified future is called electrification.

Electrification is critical because it decouples the source of the electricity from the consumer. Electricity has several properties that make it essential for energy usage going forward. It can scale; it powers a toaster to a whole-house heating system. It can be stored, with the improving state of batteries. It can be transported cheaply over long distance high-voltage power lines.

As we electrify, we can wean ourselves off of our dependency on fossil fuels and ramp up generating electricity from zero-carbon sources, like solar, wind, and nuclear. We can do this without changing any of the consumers of that electricity, since it's completely fungible.

Fossil fuels like oil and natural gas have similar properties as electricity. Perhaps they do not scale down to small use cases (I don't want a gas motor in my toaster), but they do scale up to larger use cases (like airplanes and industries like steel-making). For these larger use cases, the use of fossil fuels may persist for longer, until we have suitable replacements. This should not impede us today from moving toward where we need to get to tomorrow.

There are several key technologies which will be essential to our electrified future:

Heat pumps. Heat pumps can replace all of heating and cooling in our homes and buildings. Heat pumps can also be used for domestic hot water heating.
Electric cars. Electric cars will eliminate a large amount of need for gasoline and other fossil fuels.
Solar panels. Solar panels allow us to tap into the abundant source of energy from the sun. They can be used as both large-scale power plants, or on individual home rooftops to provide a significant amount of energy needs.
Nuclear power. There will still be a need for baseload electricity generation since the sun does not shine all the time. Nuclear is the only green option here. New nuclear power plant designs will be essential to winning over the public on this, who still remembers Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island.
Battery storage. Batteries are storage for balancing out times when demand of electricity does not meet supply. Batteries allow us to "time-shift" electricity. This can be done at grid-scale or individual homes, which replaces the need for on-site generators. Batteries smooth the "peaks" in usage which avoids the need of peaker generators which are typically powered by fossil fuels.
Smart grid. A smart grid means an electric grid which can send signals to indicate times of high or low demand, which further smooths out the demand curve. During times of high demand, a smart grid can influence a pause in a heat pump or a delay in charging your car to meet current demand. This can be mediated through variable-rate pricing to the second. Owners of electric devices can specify policies on when to pause electricity consumption.

I look forward to seeing these technologies take over in my lifetime. We are only in the early phases of change. An electrified future, despite its many challenges to adoption, promises a way for us to live sustainably on this earth for the rest of our many generations to live here.