Every industrialized nation on earth faces a very daunting problem. We are depleting our fossil fuels at am alarming rate. We are very focused these days on “carbon emissions” and “climate change.” Studies show these are the consequences of this rapid depletion. I’m not going to take sides on the climate debate. As a “car guy” my concern is that I may lose out on one of my favorite pastimes.
How do we save the car?
Electric cars are almost mainstream these days. I see at least a half dozen or so each day on my limited commute. They really are a marvel of engineering and technology. But can the electric car save my hobby? Let’s take a ride and talk about this.
I’m going to get tough here and state right off the top-I do not believe that battery powered vehicles are the way forward.
Chief among my reasons: the environment. “But wait!” I hear you saying…
Hold on and I’ll explain. The car itself may be good for your local environment. As you drive around you are not releasing any of that dreaded green house gas. But do you know how much damage was done to the environment to create the battery that is sitting in the trunk?
Lithium ion batteries are comprised primarily of 3 elements. Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel.
The primary sources of Lithium on the planet are in South America and China. The process for extracting Lithium involves drilling into natural salt flats and using water and other chemical reactions to filter out the Lithium salts. It takes an estimated 500,000 gallons of water and about 18 months to extract 1 tonne of Lithium. For perspective, the battery in a single Tesla Model S contains about 12 kilos of lithium.
The water left over at the end of the filtration process has been converted into Hydrochloric acid, a toxic byproduct harmful to the environment that must be disposed of carefully.
This brings us to Cobalt.
Wired UK called the process of mining Cobalt “uniquely terrible”. The bulk of the Cobalt used in manufacturing Lithium ion batteries comes from The Congo region of Africa. It is mined by hand by some of the poorest people on earth. They mine it without protection and with little to no government oversight. As a result, no concern is given to the human element or the environment. Waste generated by mining operations is often left untreated and simply dumped into rivers and streams contaminating drinking water throughout the region.
That’s just the impact from manufacturing the batteries. We haven’t talked at all about the impact of charging them yet.
The largest portion of North American electricity comes from coal. We have been burning coal for electricity since the Industrial Revolution. It is one of the primary contributors to Green House gas emissions and is one of the things that we are focused on eliminating from our global energy strategy in the future.
If every vehicle in the US was electric, those cars would use every bit of the power generation capacity of the country plus an additional 18% from another power source just to break even. In order to produce that much power, without resorting to additional coal power plants, an area the size of the state of Delaware would need to be covered with solar panels.
So just in these brief paragraphs we’ve hit on some major impacts of battery vehicles. We didn’t even touch on the more common downsides of battery vehicles such as range, recharge time, and battery replacement/disposal.
As I always do, I encourage you to dig deeper into these subjects and decide for yourself.
As a “car guy” I like the Tesla. It’s full of great tech and it’s incredibly fast. I would buy one for those reasons alone. I would not buy one because it would save the planet. It will not.
Sources:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-toll-of-the-cobalt-mining-industry-congo/
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/greenbaum2/
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