Just doodling around with the "back of the envelope" or "napkin" calculations it is easy to see that electrification has a pretty sizable cost in resource acquisition. The mining of metals, energetic chemistry and eventually the re-direction of energy dependency onto a different feed stock of fuel does not solve the slow and gradually increasing costs associated with depletion.
I encourage you to look at your own grid capacity and calculate what just a 10 percent shift from gas or diesel fuel looks like to grid capacity. Forget about the battery pack or the design of the vehicle. Just contemplate the required kW capacity to maintain existing consumption and adding the new base load which includes millions of extra kWh generation.
Ponder for a moment how many more power plants are required to meet just that humble shift away from petroleum. Thousands of plants would need to be built. All feedstocks are so far, finite. So this is like dominos. Shift off of one source, rapidly deplete the new source.
The need for rapid down sizing, extreme conservation and concerted efforts to productionize truly renewable energy chemistries in sustainable quantities that can be applied in environmentally friendly ways is upon us. In fact the time is late.
The temptation to aggressively seek to maintain economies by conquest will only result in a temporary continuation of the current standard and an even more rapid eventual decline in energy resources.
What does this look like? A very non-linear escalation in energy costs associated with all commodities that will outpace our ability to adapt. Put another way, shortages of all types have to happen in spite of grandiose plans for digital wonderment. Quality of life and in general population declines; read sustained contraction will be the future until a new steady state is reached. Nobody has the insight as to inventiveness, public reaction, scientific development etc., to predict how to manage this. Generally the established frameworks of honesty, ethical behavior and hard work seem to have all gone missing. So exploitation through chaos is likely to be the order of the day. A less than optimal strategy for success.
When? Meh, gradually over the next decade IMHO, the physical forces related to energy depletion will fracture the economic wishful thinking and rubric we have come to accept as the way things work. As I mentioned above the depletion is slow, but the effect is very non-linear.
How to roll with the changes? Decrease your energy footprint in every way. Reduce or eliminate financial overhang. The world has time to adjust if we start moving in a serious way towards low energy consumption, institutionalized (not financialized) recycling and collaboration and sharing strategies that work.
When I think about our global leaders and the target fixation they all share of economic interests I think Stanley Resor put it best as to who we can count on to get us through when times get tough...
"And when havoc strikes, it is the ones who are officially in charge who often freeze or come unhinged."
"That's when the true leaders, who might not be near the top simply because they have the good sense to avoid competitive, back-stabbing people, rise to the occasion and assume the role of hard, risky leadership that no one else, in time of crisis really wants." - S Resor
Interesting times.
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