LowEmissionAsphalt-136pg-WhitePaper-May2023

P a g e | 77 By most estimates, we will need at least ten billion new solar panels 153 or more installed and replaced every decade in the United States alone just for EVs, creating substantial financial, logistic and land use issues. That adds up to about fourteen million acres of repurposed land (25,000 square miles) and in excess of $25 trillion in costs every replacement cycle . 154 Of course, none of this will matter unless these future solar farms are able to constantly produce the massive amount of electricity needed despite current efficiencies of just 15% or less. 155 While future technology must develop much more rapidly to efficiently transfer solar (or wind) power over long distances and store it. Spiraling energy inflation and increased blackouts and power austerity measures ( brownouts ) are an early indicator of what is to come if we push too far too fast. The Swiss government is planning EV restrictions this winter, for example. Contrasting beliefs, global energy consumption from renewables (includes hydroelectric and nuclear) has stagnated at 16.4% in 2010 and only 17.1% as of 2019. 156 Energy consumption from fossil fuels was 91% in 1950 and estimates for 2050 still are 76% , a hundred years later. 157 So, energy transitions are necessarily measured and pragmatic. Reasoned analysis suggests that even if we solve for such limitations for renewable energy sources, in part or in whole, estimates for overhauling the country’s electric grid and energy infrastructure for new energies ballparks around a hundred trillion dollars, mostly recurring . 158 159 160 Taking one infrastructure need – charging stations illustrates this economic point. 153 BlackwallPartners LLC; National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), www.nrel.gov . 154 NREL 155 NREL. 156 Phillips 66. 157 Phillips 66. 158 The Republican Study Committee, A Greedy New Steel , February 2019. 159 The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute. 160 Stanford University, School of Earth, Energy & Environment. O verhauling the country’s electric grid and energy infrastructure for new energies ballparks around a hundred trillion dollars, mostly recurring.