BY ROBERT GIBSON
Chair
Board Of Utilities
Los Alamos County

Electrification is the conversion to electric power of devices or processes that previously used other forms of energy. Today, the term commonly refers to conversions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning hydrocarbon fuels. That is not the only motivation. It may not even be the biggest.

Americans have been electrifying since Edison’s first “grid” in the early 1880s. Electric lights replaced oil lamps and candles. Electric motors replaced muscle power. Electric refrigerators replaced ice boxes. The list is endless.

It did not happen overnight. Electric transmission did not even reach many rural areas in the US until the 1930s or after.

Our ancestors did not electrify out of a sense of societal responsibility or from government mandate, although it did reduce risk of fire from open flames. As older devices wore out or became obsolete, consumers chose electric devices simply because they were better. Electrification will continue for the same reason.

An obvious current example is the electric vehicle (EV). They are simpler and easier to maintain while costing less to operate than gasoline or diesel-fueled vehicles. EV purchase costs have been higher but are approaching parity with piston-pounders.

Neither EVs nor their supporting infrastructure are yet mature. They will keep improving and getting less expensive. Manufacturers and consumers have had more than a century and a couple billion vehicles to refine piston vehicles and squeeze every penny out of costs. The US has over 100,000 gas stations but only started getting serious about EV chargers in the last decade.

Current politics is slowing EV adoption in the US, but not the rest of the world. 90% of new cars in Norway are EVs. China exceeds 50%.

A smaller, but even clearer, example is induction cooktops. They cook faster and more evenly than gas. They heat food far faster than traditional electric cooktops with less power. They don’t emit traces of nitrogen dioxide, benzene, or formaldehyde nor do they risk igniting a towel that gets too close. They are also safer for little or careless fingers. As with EVs, almost everyone who has tried induction cooking loves it.

The restraint on adoption of induction stoves is transitional. Not all cookware is compatible. Many homes with gas stoves would need a new 240-volt electric circuit. Installation is not cheap.

Heat pumps for space heating (of which “mini-splits” are one implementation) can provide steadier heat than “on-off” gas burners. They can do double duty, too, cooling in our increasingly long and hot summers. Refrigerated air conditioning is a one-way heat pump, after all.

In new construction, heat pump space heating and cooling is comparable cost-wise to traditional systems. Retrofitting existing buildings can be complex and expensive. Typical operating costs over a season are similar. 

Heat pump water heaters and clothes dryers also exist but are not yet truly comparable to their familiar counterparts in purchase price or performance. They are getting there.

While their development has been largely motivated by environmental concerns, the new EVs and household appliances really are, or will be, better than current technologies.

Some are electrifying because of the environment. Others, regardless of how they feel about anthropogenic climate change, also have increasingly good reasons to electrify – as they did when they replaced their candles and iceboxes.

Electrification is clearly the direction we are going. How fast is less certain.       

The job of County Utilities is to make sure all our customers have the increased electric power when needed – at the lowest cost possible.

Note: This article represents the individual views of its author, not necessarily those of the Board or Department of Public Utilities.