EV's aren't so green?

August 22, 2021 5:56 PM

The Tough Calculus of EV carbon emissions. "A growing body of research points to the likelihood that widespread replacement of conventional cars with EVs would likely have a relatively small impact on global emissions. And it’s even possible that the outcome would increase emissions."

"...Uncertainties in the embodied energy begin with the ore grade, or share of rock that contains each target mineral. Ore grades can range from a few percent to as little as 0.1 percent depending on the mineral, the mine, and [overburden]. Using today’s averages, the quantity of ore mined—necessarily using energy-intensive heavy equipment—for one single EV battery is about: 10 tons of lithium brines to get to the 30 pounds of lithium; 30 tons of ore to get 60 pounds of cobalt; 5 tons for the 130 pounds of nickel; 6 tons for the 90 pounds of copper; and about one ton of ore for the 190 pounds of graphite.

Then, one must add to that tonnage the “over-burden,” the amount of earth that’s first removed in order to access the mineral-bearing ore. That quantity also varies widely, depending on ore type and geology, typically from about three to seven tons excavated to access one ton of ore. Putting all the factors together, fabricating a single half-ton EV battery can entail digging up and moving a total of about 250 tons of earth. After that, an aggregate total of roughly 50 tons of ore are transported and processed to separate out the targeted minerals."

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"Similarly problematic, one finds forecasts of future emissions savings often explicitly assume that the future battery supply chain will be located in the country where the EVs operate. One widely cited analysis assumed aluminum demand for U.S. EVs would be met by domestic smelters and powered mainly from hydro dams. While that may be theoretically possible, it doesn’t reflect reality. The United States, for example, produces just 6% of global aluminum. If one assumes instead the industrial processes are located in Asia, the calculated lifecycle emissions are 150% higher."

posted by storybored (10 comments total)

The author is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute a right wing think tank. Don’t fall for this petrodollar funded bullshit economic analysis.
posted by interogative mood at 6:15 PM on August 22, 2021 [21 favorites]

If you dig into it a bit, most CO2 emissions over the lifetime of a passenger vehicle come from operating it, not from manufacturing. I'll see if I can find a reasonably authoritative source.
posted by russilwvong at 6:17 PM on August 22, 2021

If we are maintaining the current system, we will not fix climate change. Period.

We cannot expect at this point to buy our way out of this problem. That doesn’t mean there won’t be solutions in the future more meaningful than EVs, but the scale of the problem requires solutions we have not yet realized.

I am not saying this to say we cannot hope. We need to hope. We need to hope that trying collectively for an answer or solution is worthwhile and meaningful.

But we also must be honest here. The energy we have put into the world is almost incomprehensible. It will take more than using the same means of transportation, business, processes and systems that brought us here.

The world needs to change. EVs will likely not be the answer.
posted by glaucon at 6:18 PM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah, burning fossil fuels by everyone forever would be so much better...

Battery tech may evolve and use different minerals. I power my EVs of solar on my roof. This is disingenuous at best.
posted by Windopaene at 6:18 PM on August 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

This article takes a new tack I hadn't seen before, looking in detail at the CO2 emissions implicit in manufacturing the EV-specific parts. Particularly the batteries. I'm not equipped to evaluate that, although the author's background is troubling. The numbers may be right even if the conclusion is wrong.

But the article does also talk about another part which I am more well read on; "the wide variability of power grids". Depending on where you live an EV may actually be worse than a gas burner right now, if the electricity charging your car comes from a coal plant. But that's changing. And will keep changing as we bring on more clean power. Not to mention personal incentives like installing solar panels to charge your car at your house. (The solar panels are definitely a significant net improvement in carbon after you count the manufacture cost.)

These days I'm entranced by Saul Griffith's argument for electrifying everything. It's a way to cut the Gordian Knot of lowering carbon impact. First you electrify everything, say your car. Then (or in parallel) you work to improve the carbon impact of your electricity, say with solar on your roof. But electrifying first simplifies everything. You can do that now and it brings some immediate benefits with more to come. To put it another way, there's no way a gas burning car will ever ever stop generating CO2 for every mile you drive. But an electric car should get better over time as the grid improves.

There's versions of his argument online already, including the book Rewiring America. That one's a little rough drafty; he's got a major book coming out in October at MIT Press.
posted by Nelson at 6:19 PM on August 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Electric cars have much lower life cycle emissions, new study confirms

If you listen to electric vehicle naysayers, switching to EVs is pointless because even if the cars are vastly more efficient than ones that use internal combustion engines—and they are—that doesn't take into account the amount of carbon required to build and then scrap them. Well, rest easy because it's not true.

posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:25 PM on August 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

Here's what should be a reasonably authoritative source, the IEA's Global EV Outlook 2020. Comparative life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of a mid-size BEV and ICE vehicle. You can see that the emissions associated with manufacturing a BEV (battery electric vehicle) and an ICE-powered vehicle (internal combustion engine) - the lower parts of the bar graph - are pretty similar, at less than 10 t CO2.

The upper parts of the bar graph represent the emissions associated with actually powering the vehicle, either from electricity (which will depend on how clean the electricity supply is) or from gasoline.

In Canada, we have a lot of hydro power (especially in BC, Manitoba, and Quebec), so the emissions from electricity will be much lower than the global average depicted on the graph.
posted by russilwvong at 6:25 PM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I quickly Googled the writer after seeing interogative mood's comment and Mark Mills has been a speaker at a Koch-funded Heritage Foundation climate denial event. He's also testified to Congress against conserving fossil fuels and has appeared on a debunked viral video by "Prager University" spreading misinformation about renewable energy (which is a conservative site and not a university). It's irresponsible to share this FPP without any context about the author's funders and views.
posted by rogerroger at 6:28 PM on August 22, 2021 [9 favorites]

I’d recommend the new season of It Could Happen Here, which originally was a podcast series that imagined what a collapse of America would look like. This was from 2019, and many of the scenarios he speculated on came very, very close to happening in 2020.

But the new season demands that we don’t just fall into despair and give up. He’s still fictionalizing elements, but again citing real news stories and reports, and drawing from real world scenarios. In upcoming episodes he will be interviewing experts to give hope and encourage people to imagine a new world so listeners take action from a place of seeking real change.

If we don’t have a new vision for the future, we won’t be able to change. Change is possible, even with the world as it is now.

Thank you all for pointing out the Koch connection of this author. I still feel strongly that EVs won’t solve this issue for us, and worry that actual change will be stopped and supplanted with the same power systems that brought us here using tech that doesn’t actually solve the problem and advertising that washes over actual impact.

It’s true though that EVs can be a part of a paradigm shift that gets us much closer to where we need to be. I just don’t think they take us across the finish line, or even get us close, if we’re using them to buy things that destroy forests, require carbon intensive manufacturing and we don’t solve for other sources of carbon emissions like agriculture and heavy industry.
posted by glaucon at 6:39 PM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

We’re eventually going to wind up at green hydrogen, if we’re lucky. In the meanwhile we do what we can.
posted by notyou at 6:47 PM on August 22, 2021