JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Veronica Glover grew up in Jacksonville’s Urban Core near the Buckman Wastewater Treatment Facility, JEA’s largest regional sewer plant. She still lives in the predominantly Black neighborhood, where air pollution from heavy industry and the nearby highway is inescapable.
“When you go over to certain ZIP codes, what you don’t see is a chemical plant, you don’t see a manufacturing plant,” said Glover. Her mother, who lives nearby, suffers from a lung disease and both have survived cancer. “Those are the things that seem to be concentrated in marginalized communities.”
Glover is the executive director of the Sister Hermana Foundation, a non-profit that helps families fighting cancer. She’s concerned about the ways the polluted air around her threatens the health of her family and neighbors.
Glover lost her husband to colon cancer a year after her own battle with breast cancer. “Inhaling that same type of toxins over and over and over again is definitely not good for our community,” she said.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic slowdown, massive reductions in air pollution from gasoline- and diesel-burning internal combustion engines led to noticeably cleaner air worldwide.
But as people and industries returned to their routine use of cars and trucks, air quality worsened again. That’s because the largest contributor to carbon emissions in the U.S. is transportation, with 75% of carbon emissions attributed to the fossil-fuel-burning engines in our cars, trains, trucks and buses.
Electric vehicles present a solution for reducing the substantial share of harmful pollutants from fuel-powered vehicles in cities like Jacksonville. Florida could avoid nearly 10,000 premature deaths by 2050 if sales of its residents and businesses switch to battery-powered electric vehicles exceed those of fuel-burning vehicles by the end of the decade, according to Princeton Net Zero America modeling.
The and state’s growing EVs has the potential market also promises to boost in-state economic activity by billions, but will require Florida legislators have so far not prioritized to endorse ramped-up EV adoption.
‘A triple burden’
Air pollution increases the chances that people will end up in the hospital, and if they have respiratory and cardiovascular diseases like COPD, stroke, lung cancer or asthma, it lowers the chance of surviving them. That means where you live within Jacksonville can actually be a matter of life and death.
“In low and middle-income areas of cities, where historically, highways and roads tend to have been built in...in those areas where there’s a lot more car traffic and transportation traffic, we see a higher increased risk or higher increased prevalence of these diseases,” said Scott Helgeson, a pulmonologist and senior associate consultant at Jacksonville’s Mayo Clinic.
For the 27% of Duval County’s population making less than a living wage, obtaining medical treatment can be inaccessible or unaffordable. “The cost of medications and care can be burdensome, if not impossible, for low-income people to be able to handle,” Helgeson said.
The health consequences of tailpipe vehicle emissions, like smog and particle pollution, affect those who are most vulnerable: children, the elderly and those suffering from lung conditions.
Air pollution disproportionately impacts those living near busy freeways and congested roadways; neighborhoods that house a disproportionate number of Black and Latinx residents. These frontline communities also tend to live close to power plants and other industrial facilities, which compounds the poor air quality.
“There’s a triple burden,” said Marianne Hatzopoulou, a professor in engineering at the University of Toronto, and head of the school’s Transportation and Air Quality research group. “Not only are disadvantaged populations experiencing the highest levels of air pollution, but they are also the ones that are generating the least amount of emissions from transportation in a day,” she said.
Hatzopoulou says a growing body of evidence linking air pollution exposure to social disadvantage should be taken into account when local and state governments evaluate transportation decisions.
“What we want to look at is not just how they’re going to improve air pollution, overall, but what we want is the benefits of these policies to actually accrue to the people who are exposed to the highest level of air pollution,” Hatzopoulou said.
For nearly two years, researchers tracked air quality disparities between low-income neighborhoods of color and high-income white neighborhoods in Jacksonville and more than 50 other U.S. cities. The recently published study, co-authored by University of Virginia atmospheric chemist Sally Pusede, focused on levels of NO2, or nitrogen dioxide — an air pollutant released from fossil fuels that can cause and exacerbate chronic health problems like asthma.
In Jacksonville, people of color living in low-income neighborhoods breathe air containing nearly a quarter more NO2 than non-Hispanic whites living in high-income areas.
That same study also compared diesel NO2 emissions on weekends with weekdays, finding that a drop in heavy trucking on weekends led to pollution cuts of more than 60% on average, with “frontline” communities benefiting the most.
“This is another piece of evidence that says to policymakers that these trucks are really important, to control the emissions of diesel trucks,” said Pusede. “People should be paying attention to the equity dimensions of these vehicles. That is the most important part.”
Electric vehicles in the River City
Convincing drivers to switch technologies for the sake of air quality could be a tough proposition though. Fleet purchasers wield a lot of consumer influence, and the rental car industry will play a critical role in the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
Tesla’s new $4.2 billion deal with Hertz signals a shift in the way the rental car industry is responding to consumers’ growing sustainability demands.
For individual consumers, fuel savings can be a major draw, helping to start to replace some of the internal combustion engines on the roads with cleaner-running electric vehicles.
Electric vehicle fueling costs per household can be 50% to 75% lower than for gasoline-fueled vehicles. A 2020 U.S. Department of Energy study found that in Florida, an EV driver’s lifetime fuel costs are an average $7,000 cheaper than fossil-fueled vehicles.
That cost-effectiveness is what won Jacksonville resident Erik Gonzalez over to electric vehicles.
“After having done some research into EVs and Tesla in particular, I was really just impressed by not just the performance aspect, but the reliability and the cost of maintenance,” he said.
Gonzalez just invested in his first Tesla. He gets about 285 miles out of a full charge and has driven about 6,000 miles. “That equates to a cost savings of about $1,100 so far, just in fuel savings,” he said. Gonzalez also recently signed up for a new incentive program for EV owners that JEA launched this month.
“Electric vehicle owners can get a rebate back if they agree to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours,” said Dave McKee, JEA’s program manager of electrification.
The rebate equals nearly $100 a year off bills.
“This is a win-win for the utility and for the EV owners that get approximately 2,000 miles of free driving every year they enroll in the program,” McKee said.
Gonzalez is one of hundreds who have already signed up for the rebate, which is part of JEA’s larger Drive Electric program. JEA and the federal government also offer incentives for individuals and companies that want to install electric vehicle charging stations, on top of up to a $7,500 federal tax credit for buying new electric and hybrid vehicles.
Many Jacksonville residents considering EVs may also be concerned about what their city utility’s energy mix means for their personal carbon footprint. JEA is still very dependent on fossil fuels. Last year the utility got just 1% of its energy from renewable sources and this year is expected to be very similar.
Right now, JEA has a stated goal of getting 30% of its energy from clean sources by the end of this decade. It’s working through the logistics of how to get there.
“We are going to know more, probably in a year and a half, to say what our forward plan is, and we’ll have a much better understanding of how renewables play into our mix,” said Vicki Nichols, JEA director of customer solutions, market and development.
Electric vehicles still only make up 1% of the global fleet of passenger cars, but many of the world’s biggest automakers are investing in manufacturing EVs, from Ford to Toyota to Volkswagen, in a range of price points and styles.
JEA is also working with Jacksonville car dealers on educating shoppers about the benefits of electric vehicles, including at Tom Bush Volkswagen in Arlington.
“Volkswagen’s really getting into electric vehicles in a big way. They’re developing a whole fleet of charging stations across the country, and they just launched the ID.4 this last spring, and it’s selling so well. We’re really excited about this vehicle,” said Megan Del Pizzo, vice president of Tom Bush Volkswagen.
In addition to price, one of the most common concerns Del Pizzo and her colleagues hear from customers interested in EVs has to do with finding charging stations. According to Del Pizzo, that’s pretty much a non-issue in the River City.
“The amount of chargers we have in Jacksonville now, you really don’t need the range anxiety that a lot of people have when they’re driving an electric car because there are chargers everywhere: at dealerships, workplaces, at the (St. Johns) Town Center,” she said.
In fact, Duval has more EV chargers per EV driver than any other Florida county, according to JEA. That ratio is high, in part, due to a relatively low number of EV vehicles on Jacksonville’s roads.
“We benefited from entities like Town Center mall coming out with large charging banks… but less than 1% of our market right now is EVs,” said Nichols with JEA. “But a year from now, who knows? We may be behind. So we’re committed to keeping up with the market.”
As EVs grow in popularity, gas stations throughout Jacksonville and elsewhere could install charging stations to benefit from the transition to a majority electric transportation sector. But a new Florida law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in June, prohibits local officials from requiring gas stations to install electric vehicle chargers.
“It really is taking the power out of the hands of the municipalities and the counties and preventing them from hitting those 100% clean energy goals,” said Ebo Entsuah, the state policy lead at Advanced Energy Economy and a Clermont, Florida, city councilman.
State legislators’ shying away from clean-energy legislation and gas industries’ lobbying against local sustainable policies doesn’t help. “It definitely can stall a bit,” Entsuah said.
For legislators, economic gains could provide an incentive, as a 2021 study out of Ohio State University found that widespread EV adoption, implemented alongside green manufacturing and green power generation initiatives, creates in-state economic activity.
A 2021 report indicates Florida as the state with the third-highest number of total new EV charging stations added between 2017 and 2021; behind California and New York. At 58,160, Florida also has the second-highest number of registered EVs in the country.
Billion-dollar boost
But even though Florida reigns as a consumer market for EVs, the state has yet to develop an EV manufacturing industry. Dory Larsen, the Electric Transportation Program Manager for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, says thanks to booming EV sales, utility investment and charging deployment, Florida is poised to lead the EV market across the Southeast.
“We found that in Florida, if all of the cars, trucks, and buses were electric today, Florida would have an extra $12.5 billion circulating through the state’s economy, annually,” said Larsen, citing a SACE report that found that in 2019, the state’s people spent $27.6 billion on gas and diesel, while fully electric transportation would have cost only $17.2 billion.
But in the pursuit of reducing America’s yearly emissions of heat-trapping pollution to net-zero, the time it takes to move from combustion engines to electric motors will have a significant effect on curbing overall greenhouse gas emissions. According to Princeton modeling, EVs would need to dominate American auto sales by the end of this decade for the U.S. to successfully decarbonize by 2050, helping it meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and avoid the most catastrophic potential levels of climate change.
The federal administration is taking steps toward net zero planning as President Biden has called for 50% of passenger vehicle and light truck sales in 2030 to be zero-emission vehicles. A $1 trillion infrastructure bill to fund that proposal sets aside $7.5 billion to expand EV charging stations in underserved areas. That bill is currently held up in Congress.
Last year, Florida’s Energy Office released a roadmap for ramping up EV numbers over the next decade; the plan included everything from adapting transportation infrastructure to advancing electrified mobility and electrifying disaster preparedness.
But not much can happen without state lawmakers’ backing bills that promote clean energy. The Republican-controlled legislature passed its first piece of climate legislation in 2020.
With the next legislative session beginning in January, AEE policy lead and Clermont City Councilman Entsuah is paying close attention.
“Especially in a state where we do see a number of natural disasters, it’ll be important for our legislators to get together and put out some of these recommendations from the floor, from the electric vehicle roadmap.”
As far as Jacksonville residents like Veronica Glover are concerned, utility companies and policymakers shouldn’t only be prioritizing the economic gains of electrification. They should consider the immeasurable costs to the communities breathing in polluted air.
“It would definitely impact and increase our numbers and save lives,” she said.