A few truths about EVs:
Charging:
Currently only 28% of UK power is generated by renewable sources which means that 72% of the power that is used to charge the batteries comes from coal or nuclear power stations. Most EV owners charge their cars overnight but, given that solar power, which represents about 4%, is not available at night, the percentage of green power drops to 24%. Obviously this will improve over time with the UK’s ambition to cut greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 – but that’s a long way off.
Battery Degradation:
Batteries degrade over time - your phone uses lithium ion batteries and we all know that, as they age, their ability to retain power reduces significantly. EVs will therefore need to be charged more frequently as they get older which will use yet more non-green power. Replacement batteries will also need to be purchased at some point in an vehicle’s life and old batteries will need to be disposed of in a way that doesn’t damage the environment – currently challenging, if not impossible.
Recycling:
In Belgium, a company called Umicore can recycle around 35,000 EV batteries per annum but there is no facility in the UK. Over one million electric vehicles have been registered in Europe and it’s growing fast. We are therefore heading rapidly towards a recycling crisis.
Tesla is looking at improving recycling methods but is a very long way from having a ‘closed loop’.
Battery Manufacture
: Two of the key materials used in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries are lithium and cobalt. The process to source these is described below:
Lithium
: The Salar de Atacama basin in Chile is the world’s largest source of lithium (29%). Bore holes are drilled to bring up brine to the surface and into evaporation tanks for up to 24 months before the remaining sludge is taken away (in diesel lorries) to be processed. This destroys the water table. The local ecosystem cannot support this level of water extraction and, as a result, the local wildlife, trees and farmers are suffering massively. In neighboring Argentina, chemicals resulting from this process have leaked into local rivers and poisoned fish and irrigation water. Ultimately, only 6% of the sludge is extracted as lithium and this is then shipped via giant, polluting container ships to China or Japan for battery manufacture.
An alternative method of extracting lithium is from minerals (typically spodumene). To extract the lithium, the rock is crushed and heated, before being mixed with sulphuric acid. Once the lithium has been removed, the toxic residue, which is still the bulk of the original rock, is typically dumped.
Cobalt
: Over 50% of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A significant proportion of this is brought up from artisan mines – just holes in the ground, with no safety measures and with many children involved in the process. Lithium miners die every day and many more will die in the future as they suffer from the effects of having breathed the toxic air. All production in DRC is owned by Chinese companies and the miners sell the ore locally to the Chinese, who then ship it in diesel lorries to ports, where this is then, again, shipped via giant, polluting container ships to China or Japan for manufacture.
Interesting fact – the world’s largest 16 container ships produce more pollution than all the cars in the world!
How the 16 largest ships produce more pollution than all the cars in the World, and what can be done about this.
www.lngtransfer.com
Battery manufacturing locations
: Historically, Japan has been the worlds largest battery manufacturer for automotive but currently China has two of the largest 5 lithium ion battery manufacturers (CATL and BID) but they are growing rapidly and will provide 60% of automotive batteries by 2030 (up from 45% today). Chinese manufacturers also control two thirds of the market for four of the key components of lithium ion batteries - cathode materials, anode materials, electrolyte solutions and separators so there is little potential currently for more localised production. Once the batteries have been manufactured, a significant percentage are then shipped to America and Europe for car production – in giant, polluting container ships.
Those who purchase EVs do so in the genuine belief that they are helping the environment but in my view, batteries are not the answer – at least not yet. Perhaps hydrogen fuel cells will be viable if we can find a clean way to generate the hydrogen – maybe micro-nuclear? And I would imagine that the existing fuelling infrastructure could fairly simply be converted to supply hydrogen, rather than petrol or diesel, and hydrogen could be produced in-country, rather than having to ship anything several times around the world.
100% spot on. This is kind of my area, although my company has stayed away from EV charging points as they are shockingly expensive for a fast charger. (£10k)
In energy efficiency you work on return on investment. Yes it's all well and good to be carbon neutral, but if the sums don't add up what's the point?
The other thing that is not mentioned is the actual carbon footprint of production. It's anything but neutral. In fact you would have to drive your average EV over 120,000 miles for it to become carbon neutral.
And that doesn't even take into consideration the source of the electricity. There are too many variables to claim your EV is totally green as it's anything but.
That's not to say they we shouldn't try.
My personal opinion is that the battery market is controlled too much by the Chinese for Europe or the US to ever get fully behind it. Therein lies the problem with EV's.
I still maintain the hydrogen is a better alternative.
