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Comment by mydriasis | Hacker News Reader

> Once you start unpacking Tesla's balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment ...

This is what I'm most concerned about with the EV transition. How much are we going to spend -- not just monetarily, but with our planet -- to get to them? And when we get there, due to the extraction processes for batteries, are they better? These are genuine questions, I'd love to gain some perspective here. I'm by no means an expert. Seems like a lot to unpack.

Generally this article is... quite the indictment, and this is only one blurb.

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I feel exactly the same. My instincts tell me we're still screwing up the environment, just in a different way.

All the lithium, the cobalt, what do we do with it later? Put it back where we got it from? What about the tire dust, microplastics are a major problem, these cars are heavy, so that problem is exacerbated.

Lithium batteries can be readily recycled.

This is assuming there will always be demand for lithium ?

What if we discover something else?

An average car uses 50 tons of fossil fuels. An average EV uses 50kg of Lithium. It's possible to recycle the lithium, but even if you don't you're still way ahead.

> An average EV uses 50kg of Lithium.

And And additional 50 tons of fossil fuels to build the car. And still uses tons of fossile fuel when consuming electricity, because that's how we make it, and renewable aren't gonna replace it entierly, as you can't realistically go above 80% wind and solar (and even those 80% are a theoretical limit, and reaxhing it is a massive deal…).

The only green car is the car you dont drive (nor own).

A Polestar 2 has a co2e of 23 tons. 50 tons of fuel has a co2e of 50x(44/12) because co2 is heavier than c2, and x1.4 to account for refining and shipping. That's 256 tons or 10x as much, and we haven't included the embodied carbon incurred in the production of the car.

And the CO2 emissions for motive energy are also about an order of magnitude less. Nuclear, hydro wind and solar make up almost half the grid. Natgas turbines are twice as efficient as gasoline engines. EV's are 3x as efficient as gasoline cars.

> Nuclear, hydro wind and solar make up almost half the grid

But almost none of the marginal production, so everytime you get a new car, it runs almost entierely on fossile fuel…

Also, your 50t of fuel (that I tongue-in-cheek-ly reused) is complete BS: 6L per 100km, multiplied by 300 000km, times .75 (density of gasoline) you “only” get 13.5 tons.

> But almost none of the marginal production

What grid are you on? In the US, wind and solar comprise 80% of the marginal production in 2022 and almost 100% of the future planned marginal production

> 13.5 tons.

Sorry, the 50 ton calculation was for a truck that I did for a different debate.

> What grid are you on? In the US, wind and solar comprise 80% of the marginal production in 2022 and almost 100% of the future planned marginal production

I don't know where you got your figures from, but wind and solar can almost never be the marginal production means at all[1], given they have a marginal cost of almost zero…

[1] unless there some very strong anti-renewable regulation going on forcing the renewable to only supply power to the grid after a threshold, but I don't know who would want to build wind and solar in such a context…

Marginal as in "new capacity added to the grid".

Cars charge at night, so they help flatten the duck curve and use mostly base power. They're good complements to wind power, which is usually stronger at night.

> Marginal as in "new capacity added to the grid".

That's not what this word means though.

> Cars charge at night, so they help flatten the duck curve and use mostly base power

When the car is being used for daily commute, yes, but not when travelling (IIRC the majority of gas consumption is caused by long-distance travelling in my country).

> They're good complements to wind power, which is usually stronger at night

Do you have a source for that?Because me personal experience suggest the opposite actually.

The word you're looking for is "peak". Marginal capacity describes both the last piece added and the first piece removed. It can apply to both our usages, and since there's a better term for your usage...

> When the car is being used for daily commute, yes, but not when travelling (IIRC the majority of gas consumption is caused by long-distance travelling in my country).

Citation definitely needed, I strongly disbelieve this.

Even our 500 miles trip mostly use night energy -- charge overnight for the first 320 on cheap night electricity, add 200 halfway in between at expensive rates, and recharge to full at destination at cheap night rates.

> Do you have a source for that?Because me personal experience suggest the opposite actually.

First one that showed up in my Google: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...

Even where it's not true, the production delta between night and day is lower than the demand delta between night day, so wind provides a disproportionate share of power at night.

> Nuclear, hydro wind and solar make up almost half the grid

Also don't forget that fossil fuels are used to transport the fossil fuels to your fossil fuel-burning car. The "EVs are just as bad" crowd act like everyone pumps and refines their own fuel in their back yard.

Damn those numbers are wildly interesting.

There will still be a lot of usages, and then we don't need to dig up more.

Comparing the environmental impact of extraction processes for batteries to the impact of fossil fuel use is laughable, but I don’t fault you for asking the question. It’s disinformation, plain and simple, and it’s been surprisingly effective at getting people to question the shift to EVs over the past couple of years.

A broader conversation about consumption habits and their environmental impact in the western world is completely valid and sorely needed, but arguing that the transition to EVs isn’t worth it because there are other negative impacts is just plain defeatist. Slowing the rate at which we are pumping carbon into the atmosphere is virtually the only thing that matters at this moment.

Gotcha, understood! Yes, I didn't know that it was disinformation at all.

Our family is trying our best to cut down on consumption habits, from growing our own food to generally trying to be less wasteful of gas, electricity, etc., but it is difficult: we grew up in these conditions and "cutting the cord" is a tough thing to do.

I'd like to do whatever _really really helps us_ in the long run, you know? If that means EV conversion then so be it.

The other piece is that individual action is good, but laughably ineffective in broad strokes. When we talk about polluters and wasters of renewable and non-renewable resources, corporations are the biggest culprits.

If we really want to conquer climate change, it starts by forcing the market to internalize the economic costs rather than passing them onto the taxpayer (and individual). Policies like cap and trade, polluter pays, and so on, are what's most effective at curbing climate change. Incentivizing proactive shifts (and penalizing laggards) towards renewable resources in manufacturing are what's required.

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