Is renewable electricity a viable alternative for fossil fuels in transportation?

Clarisse Moreau Crespin                 BB3 TD4

English essay

Is renewable electricity a viable alternative for fossil fuels in transportation?

In our globalized economy, transportation is primordial for goods, people or information exchanges. Nevertheless, the transportation system’s strong dependence on fossil fuels as petroleum makes it a very polluting industry.  Following a sustainable development goal, a lot of manufacturers develop electric technologies in order to provide an alternative for oil engines. But as most of electricity is produced from thermic sources, it is not very sustainable. This is why renewable energies coming from renewable resources such as wind, sun or water sources aim more and more to become a preferred alternative for fossil fuels. However, the capability and benefits of these energies tend to be challenged by many opinions.  Mine is that renewable electricity is a very good alternative to oil since it is one of the less polluting. While admitting this, we have to consider the enormous costs of its production and the issues caused by its intermittent character.

To begin with, we all have to take into consideration the big benefits renewable electricity could bring to our transportation system, and especially how urgent it is to convert our current system to a new sustainable one.

Indeed, the first argument in favour of renewable energies is that they have a very low carbon footprint. This makes them pretty much clean and as well appropriate alternatives to fight global warming, which represents the major challenge of our century.  As they are made with renewable resources, they can’t run out along the lines of oil. Actually, the petroleum shortage is also one of the major issue of our transportation system, that renewable energies could solve by being infinite.

Afterwards, we have to admit electricity is way more efficient than we expect. The particular reason for this circumstance is that electric engines have a very low integrated electricity consumption unlike other motors. In fact, they don’t require fuel input, and it’s not necessary to convert heat into electricity. As a result, the supply of electricity during peak periods is reduced, and transmission losses and congestion are lower.

Opponents might say that on society scale, it is very difficult and expensive to convert our system and produce only renewable energies. I agree with them on the inconveniences renewables could have. For example, implement wind turbines or fields of solar panels represent a very high cost for private companies or for governments, as closing the nuclear power plants is also a terrible sacrifice for them.

For cars manufacturers, the electric transition is also a big challenge, because the production of electric batteries is very costly, due to their rare components. This actively demonstrate that it is as well difficult for the general public to get an affordable access to electric alternatives.

We can also doubt on the fact renewables can really provide the required amount of energy to supply the demand. As we know, they are actually intermittent, so they are not producing energy all through the day, since the wind is not blowing every minute. They also can sometimes overproduce.

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