Do EV's actually do anything beneficial for the planet?
Do EV's actually do anything beneficial for the planet?
I've seen a lot of posts here on Lemmy, specifically in the "fuck cars" communities as to how Electric Vehicles do pretty much nothing for the Climate, but I continue to see Climate activists everywhere try pushing so, so hard for Electric Vehicles.
Are they actually beneficial to the planet other than limiting exhaust, or is that it? or maybe exhaust is a way bigger problem?
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I’m no expert, but I’ve asked the same question myself.
First off, I’ve been told that yes, exhaust from I.C.E. vehicles is very much a HUGE environmental concern. That being said, however- due to issues with current electrical generation, means that unless large steps are taken toward sustainable green energy, running the current grid for enough to cover charging needs produces a comparatively close amount of pollution per mile driven. On top of that, is the issue with the rare-earth minerals needed to manufacture the batteries used in current EVs, which are extremely damaging to mine, especially in increasing quantities. And finally- once they are worn out, there is no reliably safe way to dispose of those batteries. And the current lifecycle of them averages around 3-5 years, so as more are disposed of, that impact on soil and water tables is projected to skyrocket.
So it’s a many-fold issue, and at the end of the day they aren’t necessarily WORSE than ICE vehicles, but they are also not really any better.
As for why people THINK they are super environmentally friendly? In a word- marketing.
Worth noting that with the current US electrical grid an EV produces about half to too thirds of the pollution per mile, and is expected to be down to one third by the time a new electric vehicle bought today reaches the end of its life. Given that cars represent a significant portion of the transportation sectors carbon emissions, which in turn represent theory percent of the US entire emissions, I wouldn’t call halving that inside ten years insignificant, especially as there is no practical alternative that could be implemented on a similar time scale that would be prevented by said EV adoption.
It’s also practically possible to decarbonise electricity, indeed renewables are now cheaper than fossil for new electrical generation even accounting for their intermittence, while it’s not really feasible to do so with oil. While carbon capture is a thing, it hasn’t been able to scale well dispite having been thrown money at for nearly fifty years now and there industries like aviation that can pay a lot more to get first dibs on said fuel.
Lithium is hardly particularly damaging to the environment to mine when compared to most other mining operations, like in the case of the worlds largest lithium producer’s(Australia) the coal mines next door. Cobalt actually isn’t that relevant in mass adoption scenarios as it’s cost means it tends to be completely absent in most adorable mass market EVs which currently tend to use LFP as compared to lithium ion or nickel cadmium.
As for recycling batteries, you just toss them in a industrial scale dielectric bath crusher and treat the output as absurdly high grade lithium-cobalt ore. The reason it has been slow to scale is not technical difficulty but rather a lack of demand, as even the first model S(one of the first properly mass produced EVs) will still have over two hundred of its two hundred and sixty mile range today. Given that one can cross the entire US with only a hundred mile range, there is still a lot more demand for reusing such cars then you get from the batteries scrap value even before considering the demand for cheap large scale batteries for things where that loss of power density doesn’t matter.
After the used and crashed market reaches maturity and we go from being able to just reuse them, recycling will actually become a significant strength of EVs, as a majority of the emissions are in battery mining, and thusly only happen once. We have a 97% capture rate on lead acid car batteries today, and thouse are only worth dozens of dollars in material, not thousands, so I hardly expect any to make their way into landfills in sufficient quantities to compete with the byproducts of even just refining oil on water and soil conditions.
A lot of ICE cars nowadays are hybrids which have just as many rare earth mineral requirements and still have terrible exhaust issues. EVs are a massive step up in sustainability.
Don't forget the fact that you've now got two propulsion systems to maintain, meeting at the nexus of a much more complex transmission.
More can go wrong, though admittedly Toyota seems to have gotten a lot right. But if you have an issue, lots and lots of parts to consider.