Does mining for batteries erase the climate benefits of EVs? No, and here's why
text.npr.org
text.npr.org
Under your arguments, we should just assume $100 of fuel will pollute approximately the same as $100 of solar. This is grossly misguided. That fossile fuels are involved somewhere doesn't create an equivalency. It matters where the dollars go. Jfc I can't believe that needs to be said.
$100 of gas and a $100 solar panel do have about the same environmental impact at first, but 10 MWh of electricity produced by a $100 solar panel has much less environmental impact than however much fossil fuel it would take to generate the same.
And are we adjusting for energy generation and loss in transit? There's a carbon cost to produce/deliver gas, and there's energy loss in transmission lines. So what's the carbon cost of the oil rig, refining, delivery and what's the carbon cost of the solar plant (including all of its batteries) amortized over its lifetime and the coversion of that cost into Kw adjusted for loss in transmission?
I'm not necessarily against EVs at all, but so far I've yet to see a good, deep analysis as to how much of an improvement they are. This article is running away from that anlysis as fast as it can.
(This ignores the carbon cost of electricity generation which varies widely. But it also ignores the carbon cost to create & transport the gasoline, which adds about 50% to the CO2 per gallon).
For reference, here's one that answers some of what I'm asking:
https://theicct.org/publication/a-global-comparison-of-the-l...
One could even ignore all the text and just look at the bar chart for the numbers.
Any original analysis that’s worth its beans is going to be far denser than that reference or the NPR article. Scientific and technical publications aren’t quite as bad as reading legalese but they’re close, full of jargon and precise language.
Since that short reference with the bar chart was too dense, then what you’re looking for definitely seems to be a pop-sci type summary - like the original NPR article.
I found what I was looking for already. Both the NPR article and the chart were digestable for me. I originally complained the article had no numbers, but you prompted me to read it more closely at which point I found a study with the easy-to-read chart. I posted that study directly in a comment, then "ortusdux" made a snarky comment about needing a simpler article, which I assume was directed at me because I didn't originally find the references in the NPR article.
They are improving significantly every year: density increase which allows weight and volume reduction or longer range; cheaper and less contaminant materials are used for still evolving LFP and sodium batteries; Electric engines without rare earths are also appearing; loading charge from only renewable sources will be the norm; production escalation will reduce pollution per manufactured unit; recycling processes will appear
Of course there’s still some fossil fuel use (tires, some mining, etc) but overall, is there anything inherent to cars that we would continue to suggest that people just try to not use cars and use public transportation instead?
But are you confirming my guess, that we would no longer be able to say cars are bad on environmental grounds?
All EVs do is mitigate the tailpipe CO2 issue.
Take for example the phrase “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Cars definitely are ideal for certain things, but designing society and the built environment with car transport at the primary concern is highly misguided and bad for the environment even if tailpipe emissions are no longer a thing.
But in what way do they make for less pleasant cities? Wouldn't moving to electric vehicles all but get rid of noise pollution from cars?
Running next to >30mph street is a mentally taxing experience. Running on a road or trail without traffic is amazing and one realizes a mental burden is removed by eliminating the noise and extra attention required for safety.
1. The quiet—you can call to somebody on the other side of the street and they will hear you!
2. Visibility—walking down a street with no street parking is a completely different experience, you can see all of the storefronts, all of the pedestrians, etc.
3. Mobility—you feel total freedom as a pedestrian; cross the street wherever you want, no need to worry that you'll get plowed over by a car.
I actually like the idea of superblocks like they have in Barcelona. They were wonderful.
They seem like a highly pragmatic solution where you can have a mix of pedestrian friendly zones and still allow for vehicles (and in some cities, in the pedestrian friendly zones, only EV delivery vehicles are allowed).
This kind of stuff to me seems more pragmatic than the general sentiment that cars are bad.
A common approach, for example, is to allow deliveries up to a certain time, e.g. 11AM.
And if you plugged in your car while you ran whatever errands you needed to (or could get 100 miles of range at a L3 charger in < 10 mins, which is even possible today), what exactly is a use case where this wouldn't suffice?
For the record, I'm actually in favor of keeping cars and I consider proposals about people ditching their cars to be absolutely impractical, and will land on deaf ears.
That said, like any other normal human being, I would like to reduce pollution _everywhere_.
So I'd like to understand if people will still make those arguments once the "cars are bad for the environment" impact is greatly lessened from EVs.
Leaving the car plugged in overnight, while you sleep, leaves it with full range in the morning.
I think this is one of the biggest advantages of EVs, that is least touted: you never have to go to a gas station ever again.
Also a rural location offers the easiest installation of solar/batteries, which means that not only do you never go to the gas station again, but your transportation fuel is now provided onsite. Providing a huge increase in independence/autonomy.
Not if they are accellerating faster, because 'whee! high torque, let's burn some rubber' -> even more abrasion.
Also all that shit IS NOT growing on trees, and I havn't seen even one sankey-diagram accounting for all the externalities, be they ecological or economical.
It's just one big money grab.
Churn, Churn, Churn! The wheels must turn, ever faster and hotter, until they burn. Then comes another plotter along, and tells how our ways were wrong. Here is the next solution, everything else has been a delusion!
If you must have a car, then sure, an EV is better than a ICE vehicle. But our local, state, and federal governments should stop subsidizing highways and fossil fuels, and invest in public transit and cycling infrastructure. Solid bus /train service + a bike/scooter is a powerful combination.
https://www.aceee.org/greener-cars
EVs *do* have pollution associated with their creation. And its largely upon that battery pack. But with a small enough battery pack and clean enough chemistry, you'll see cars like the Nissan Leaf reach the top of these lists.
But some battery packs, such as NCA-cells found in Tesla, get penalized.
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ACEEE seems to have used an Argonne National Labs program to estimate the pollution of various raw materials. You can read about it here: https://greenercars.org/greenercars-ratings/how-we-determine...
Everyone's methodology is different, which means everyone will reach different conclusions. We *SHOULD* figure out the lifetime pollution of various EVs, mostly because different EVs will be better (or worse) than others. Its not sufficient enough to just be an EV fanboy anymore, there's a huge difference from an EV Hummer (which has more lifetime pollutions than a typical car) and a Nissan Leaf.
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ACEEE shows that many Hybrids and PHEVs are competitive vs many EVs on a lifetime scale of pollution. Case in point: Toyota's Prius Prime is the greenest car according to ACEEE. The combination of very small battery pack (13kW-hr) and very efficient driving (130MPGe when in electric mode, 50+ MPG in gasoline mode) means very little emissions in practice.
The bigger 70kW-hr battery packs emit more pollution upon creation and never catch up to the Prius or Prius Prime.
Lifetime emissions are the best way to measure the difference from an "upfront" emissions (like a Li-ion battery) vs an "over time" emissions (like a Hybrid engine).
And Lithium is a small fraction of those 5 tons from the battery.
> The reported GHG emissions range from 39–196-kgCO2eq/kWh battery due to differences in many factors including battery specifications and technologies, geographical locations, and life cycle inventory data; and material, energy, and processes emission factors; making direct comparison of results very difficult
Assuming a 80kW-hr battery pack, I'm seeing anywhere from 2.7-tons to 15-tons of CO2, which is a bit more variance than you initially pointed out.
More specifically, we can breakdown per country and get better estimates.
> Several of these studies focus on individual countries. For instance, Kim et al. (17) focused on South Korea and found an emission intensity of 141-kgCO2eq/kWh battery. Sun et al. studied China and reported an emission intensity of 124.5 kgCO2eq/kWh (20), while Dai et al. examined the United States and found an emission intensity of 72.9-kgCO2eq/kWh battery (6)
Assuming 75 kg-CO2 / kWh for USA and 80kW-hr gives me ~6-tons of CO2 per battery pack assuming relatively clean US Production.
Its approximately 20lbs of CO2 per gallon of gasoline. So 6-tons of CO2 is equivalent to 600 gallons of Gasoline, or ~24,000 miles in a typical Corolla Hybrid.
A Prius Prime is around 70% electric and 30% gasoline at 50mpg. That makes the crossover point at nearly 100,000 miles for the Prius Prime. (30,000 Mi gasoline, 70,000 Mi electric), assuming the electricity used was zero greenhouse gasses (unlikely: most electricity these days are Natural Gas in the USA).
Needless to say, the Hybrid equation is strong even in a hypothetical 100% green electric grid. Move to ~60% fossil fuel electric grid (like what we have right now in the USA) and the math goes screwy, but clearly in favor of ICE/Hybrid/PHEV.
Change the math to South Korean's dirtier 141-kgCO2/kWh and we're looking at nearly 50,000 miles before the EV (on 100% green / zero-emissions) beats a Corolla Hybrid (40mpg), and nearly 200,000 miles before the EV beats a Prius Prime.