The environmental costs of EV batteries that politicians don't tend to talk about
The environmental costs of EV batteries that politicians don't tend to talk about
Along with the massive recent manufacturing investments in electric vehicle (EV) technology and talks of a greener, decarbonized future, there are some not-so-green problems.
In its latest New Energy Finance report, Bloomberg News predicts there will be some 730 million EVs on the road by 2040. The year before, Bloomberg predicted half of all U.S. vehicle sales would be battery electric by 2030.
In Canada, too, there's talk of a big economic boost with the transition to EVs — including 250,000 jobs and $48 billion a year added to the nation's economy through the creation of a domestic supply chain.
Governments have already invested tens of billions into two EV battery manufacturing plants in southwestern Ontario. However, they come with the environmental dilemma of what to do with the millions of EV batteries when they reach the end of their life.
"The rules are non-existent," said Mark Winfield, a professor at York University in Toronto and co-chair of the school's Sustainable Energy Initiative. "There is nothing as we talk to agencies on both sides of the border, the federal, provincial, state levels.
"In the case of Ontario, the answer was actually that we have no intention of doing anything about this."
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But no one wants that
Housing prices in walkable urban neighborhoods say otherwise. The reality is that there's huge demand for dense, walkable urban places. But the NIMBYs, car companies, and fossil fuel companies don't want that.
There's a lot of people who do want to live in dense neighborhoods, enough to drive up prices fighting over the tiny supply, but from a whole population point of view it's a minority. Politicians still listen exclusively to the suburbanites. Even in the dense neighborhoods, the NIMBYs are listened to more than anyone wanting our cities to look more like Europe or (the good parts of) Asia.
If you actually travel to and experience a city with great public transportation it's mind boggling the nonsense we deal with in car centric cities. It's just so inefficient having every person in their own individual vehicle. So must space is wasted on highways, parking lots, parking garages, etc.
Some cities have massive underground parking infrastructure which is best of both worlds.
People who want the luxury of driving can, they just have to pay the high parking prices, meanwhile the city is still walkable because we're taking advantage of vertical space.
It's the big flat parking lots and big box stores that make a city miserable to live in without a car
Good point, for certain individuals a personal vehicle is a must, like a tradesperson. You can't expect a HVAC tech to carry a new heat pump on the train. However, cars should be seen as a luxury that they are, and taxed more to reflect that. This is assuming we start investing into public transportation and make cities walkable.
Ideally, most people wouldn't need to use a vehicle at all, or could rent one for the times they do need one. You could have a tiered system too, where if you live in a rural or small town where a vehicle is still necessary nothing would change. If you lived in a small or medium city and had a car (outside of job requirements) you paid a small yearly tax. If you lived in a major city and had a car you pay a luxury tax.
A car tax to fund public transit is such common sense, but I don't see it ever being popular enough to become policy in North America.
Even just making people pay the full cost of car ownership. No more free public parking and a car tax that actually covers the cost of the infrastructure.
That's one thing self driving cars will help with. There won't be as much of a need for individual cars when you can just have one pick you up whenever.
That's a good idea. What if instead of one self driving car for each person, you had a larger self driving vehicle that picked up lots of people? You could put it on a set route so you know which car to catch a ride with, and you can even dedicate specific sections of the road for these vehicles. Heck, you could even have that set route go underground, or above ground.
...and we've just reinvented public transportation.
The difference is that self driving cars would be an on demand thing. With public transportation you have to rely on their schedule, and not everywhere has stops, so you'd still have to travel to get there.
Each person having their own individual vehicle that takes them directly to where they want to go is the MOST efficient method of transport, the only thing better would be each person having their own helicopter.
I don't think it is fair to say no one wants that because few people today have been able to experience good public transit and walkability, and those that have often have to pay a premium in housing to experience it because those devlopments are scarce.