Environment/Circular Economy
Why the Transportation Industry Should Look Forward to “TaaS Disruption" (2022)
"It's really electrification that's causing the revolution in urban transport," Dr. Bradd Libby*, RethinkX Research Fellow, told HERE360. “If people are using electric vehicles and using clean sources of energy, then you're not generating pollution in urban areas... electrification is better for people's health and for the environment overall."
RethinkX suggests that the world already has the technology required and only needs to scale and gain support from governments, investors and other decision-makers to eliminate carbon emissions. In their report*, they envision three scenarios: “Be Sensible", “Get Serious" and “Get Stuck". Each one shows how adopting, exploiting or denying technology can either help mitigate climate change or disrupt the three leading CO2-creating industries: food, energy, and transportation — or not.
The combination of solar, wind, and batteries (SWB), RethinkX's proposal shows, will interrupt the use of coal, oil, and gas. Autonomous electric vehicles (A-EVs), providing a system called Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS), will disrupt internal combustion engines (ICEs) and private vehicle ownership. In addition, precision fermentation and cellular agriculture (PFCA) will disrupt the consumption of meat, milk, and other animal products. RethinkX says these interruptions are already unfolding, simultaneously, and their effects on climate change are profound.
At the end of 2021, we spoke with RethinkX research fellow, Dr. Bradd Libby, about why the TaaS disruption is something to celebrate. His insights were so rich and in-depth that we decided to discuss the “TaaS disruption" across a three-part blog series.
Part 1: The Power of Electrification
JR: What do you predict for the future of EVs? How are they a key component of TaaS?
Dr. Bradd Libby (BL): "The increase in electric vehicle usage will become even cleaner over time because of cheaper solar panels, wind power and batteries. It's really the cost of the lithium-ion battery that's driving the electric car disruption and the adoption of electric vehicles. Some companies are using electric delivery pods now, like a beach cooler on wheels... People can have food come to them, rather than driving in a large CO2-producing vehicle to a supermarket."
JR: Can you provide an example of how the reduction of emissions in the transportation, energy and food sector, via electrification, will help lower emissions in sub-sectors, commerce and the environment?
BL: “Our research indicates that the eight focus technologies we describe in our report, will require at least ten times less energy, land and other resources to get the energy, transport and food we want and need... PFCA and electric vehicles eliminate most of the demand for those things (plus, again, the deforestation, the shipping, the fertilizer production, the pesticides, the steel, the coal… everything)."