EV Naivete

I am sick to frickin death of the Environmental ignorance that goes on when it comes to Electric Vehicles. This ignorance of the facts revolves around what I call the tail pipe argument. That because Electric Vehicles have no tail pipe emissions they are what is best for the environment and to help with climate change. I do believe very strongly that we ALL should be trying to reduce our carbon footprint. I do also believe that the Electric Car at present is not the best transportation solution, because actually it has a very high carbon footprint and is not necessarily good for the environment.

First, the Carbon footprint of an Electric car is not zero. It produces zero carbon when running, absolutely, but the inputs to build and run the vehicle are all based on carbon production. Every ounce of plastic that goes into a TESLA, from moldings to bumpers to dashboards, are made of Plastics which comes from Oil. This is part of Oil’s flexibility through use of Oil’s carbon chain, it used in everything from plastics to Coffee Mate and why we will not eliminate oil entirely as no alternatives exist at present to replace Oil’s flexibility of use.

How do you charge the batteries of an Electric Vehicle? Most people would say, “plug it into the wall idiot”. I do get that, but my question goes to, where does the electricity come from out of the wall? Is it from Hydro Electric (Dams), Coal or Natural Gas Generation, Diesel or other Fossil Fuels? As all of these have a Carbon footprint and Coal is about the worst. Not only do you have to burn a lot of coal to generate power, but once it is burnt it reduces to what is called Slag and this is nasty toxic stuff. It is full of all the impurities and residue from burning coal and there are mountains of this in the Eastern US States. In 2020 the US burned 477 million tons of Coal to produce 10% of its total energy consumption according to the US Energy Information Agency(EIA), about 21% of the electrical production in the US.

In the US as a whole, 61% of US electricity is generated by Coal or Natural Gas. The remaining 39% is from Hydro Electric, Nuclear, Wind and Solar. The point about all this is having an electric car and plugging it in does not remove you from the tail pipe. The fact is, if you are in the US and own a TESLA or any electric car, to power your car, you very well might be still burning fossil fuels depending where you live.

Even Hydro Electric, Nuclear, Wind and Solar have inherent problems with them that are not environmentally friendly. Hydro Electric requires flooding massive areas of land to build a reservoir wiping out vast areas of the eco system, both plant and animal life. For Solar you need large areas for solar panels in order to generate electricity on a commercial scale same with Wind. Then there are the inherent problems with Solar and Wind that you need Mother Nature to cooperate and the lack of ability to store power generated.
Nuclear is the best option if you people want clean energy, but after Chernobyl and Fukushima, not too many people want a nuclear reactor in their backyard because of the potential economic and ecological consequences.

Here is another issue that is never mentioned in the discussion of Electric Vehicles and their Carbon footprint, the mining of Lithium. This mineral is used to produce Lithium Ion batteries, which are used to power everything from cell phones to lap tops to TESLAs. Again, there are a number of issues with the use of Lithium. First, as the world produces more electric vehicles, more batteries will be needed. That translates to more mining which means heavy equipment burning more fossil fuels to mine for Lithium. Then there is the mining itself, stripping of the land and the effects on wildlife and the tailings from the mining operation to separate the lithium.

Finally with respect to Lithium Batteries, they are not recyclable. Once they have lived their lifespan of a few years, they are off to the landfill. Not just any landfill, but one for Hazardous Waste specifically, as that is what spent Lithium Ion batteries end up becoming. These dump sites for the batteries are going to become what the slag heap is to coal, a toxic nightmare, but no one pushing electric vehicles talks about this.

Politicians, Lobby Groups, Greenpeace or whomever need to quit this spin about the electric car as the cure to our carbon emissions problems because it is not. The ways that electricity is currently produced along with environmental issues of mining and hazardous waste storage don’t make Electric vehicles in my opinion an effective way to reduce greenhouse gases and protect the environment.

If people want to reduce their greenhouse gases at the tail pipe, then buy a Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3, for your commute and get rid of the F 4000 Pickup that sucks 4 times the fuel to go the same distance. Owning a Tesla is not the solution, no matter what Elon says.