this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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While they don't address it directly, they do provide a route to address it. The issue is a lot of governments are pushing electric cars, and washing their hands of the rest.
There are 3 issues with electric cars.
They are cars - Obvious to most here, but better public transport can vastly improve the situation, regardless of how the car is powered.
Batteries - Electric car batteries are far from perfect. Their range is reduced and they are heavier. There is also the issue of lithium, and/or other chemicals used in the batteries.
Power source - An electric car is only as clean as its energy supply. Powering it from a coal power station is far worse than using renewables.
Counter to these however.
Cars will still be needed, to some extent. Electric are the least worst option we have NOW. We no longer have time to wait for a better option, or find a perfect solution.
Lithium can be recycled; we currently don't, due to the small amounts, but this will change as economics adjust . Also, we are not actually that short of it, it's just not be economically valuable enough to mine on a larger scale. Range can be adjusted as tech improves. We can also change how we operate. E.g. Combining out of town parking and charging with public transport options is an excellent way to get people using public transport on a large scale again, in an organic manner.
Power wise, it's easy to shift an electric car from fossil fuel to renewables. It's very difficult to shift an ICE car. This is also something we should be doing far more anyhow (but no-one seems to be interested in improving the grid!). On a side note, even accounting for various losses. The sheer efficiency factor of a power station means it's still better to burn oil to run an electric car, than to run the car directly on the oil.
Don't get me wrong, the fixation on electric cars is dangerous, but they are still required as part of the solution. We just need to actually work on that solution. While the right, in politics, has a tendency to "circle the wagons" which causes a significant number of problems. The left has a tendency towards "circular firing squads". We should all be careful not to help kill ideas and projects that pull in vaguely the right direction, even if it's not exactly what we want.
My main problems with EVs is that they don't reduce car dependency and the upfront manufacturing environmental cost of making them do not make them more eco friendly across their lifespan (especially with the trend of bigger and heavier cars). Car manufacturers are just jumping on the bandwagon to keep cars relevant in the mind of the consumer and clean their image of more obvious pollutants such as gas and oil.
Electric cars will just perpetuate all the other problems with cars, while tricking consumer into thinking they're making an environmentally sound choice and clean their conscience. There was still a giant environmental cost to making them, children still mined lithium for them, tyre rubber will still fill the lungs of people, etc etc.
EVs start their life with a higher environmental burden than ICE vehicles, but the math comes out so that the burden becomes lower after between 15k-20k miles.
By the end of life of an EV, they are more eco friendly than an ICE vehicle of similar build.
If that's true then I've been fed some misinformation, could you provide a link/source verifying this?
I found this article by the European Environment Agency. There's also the Green NCAP website where you can check the environmental impact of different vehicles over their entire lifetime.
Also, “Environmental burden” and “eco friendly” are generic buzzwords used to lump other environmental issues like micro plastics or habitat destruction in with the reduction of green house gases.
I wonder how the math would work out when it is strictly about reduction of greenhouse gases and factors unrelated to our dependency on fossil fuels are not skewing the results.
Good point. I was referring to analyses I read that were calculating the carbon footprint specifically. Apologies for using vague language.
The number of miles varies a lot depending on the source of electricity but it goes up to 50k if it's from burning coal IIRC
Which, over the lifetime of the car, is still a win environmentally. Modern cars are estimated to last for 200k miles, and electric vehicles are believed capable of enduring for 300k miles (although most models are too new to really prove that with data).
As far as I was aware, the environmental impact is still considerably less than a ICE car, even if powered from dirty power. The impacts are different, making a simple comparison difficult, but generally EV win out.
I'm not saying electric cars are perfect, far from it. However, the change is pushing in the right direction. Think of it as a 2 front battle. Public transport Vs car, and EV vs ICE cars. Your arguments have very little bearing on the public Vs private transport argument, but heavily affect the EV Vs ICE argument.
I'd strongly prefer cities with public transport so good that there is little need for cars etc. However, I would also rather have a city with EV cars over ICE cars. The change over from ICE to EV will also help change habits. That is a perfect time to push public transport into the mix.
Picking a fight with EV is just going to leave both groups bloody. Big oil etc will egg it on, while laughing all the way to the bank.
I mean it makes sense at a first principles level.
An ice car connected to a transmission has a lot of losses, additionally, the engine is constantly in and out of various power and efficiency ranges.
Even if you are just hooked up to a generator somewhere else, the generator can run at peak efficiency consistently to charge the battery instead of constantly varying.
You could translate it to any power source. A large wind turbine is going to do better than a small one on top of the car.
Lithium isn’t mined it is gathered by pumping water into salt flats so the lithium rises to the surface and it isn’t done by children. You’re repeating misinformation.
There is an environmental cost for absolutely anything we make. Do you suggest we stop making anything and everything?
Electric cars are the more environmentally sound choice. They are a required first step to ending our dependence on fossil fuels. Without them we cannot end our dependency.
https://www.sayona.ca/en/projets/the-north-american-lithium-complex/
Weird that they call it a mine and that there's blast alerts 🤔
Not weird at all. They are mining an ore called spodumene then using a new method to refine it into lithium. They aren’t harvesting raw lithium like it is done everywhere else in the world.
Also, nothing about children doing the work.
Nice try moving the goalpost though.
I never said anything about the children though.
Your comment started with "Lithium isn't mined", I just proved that was false, that's all.
You didn’t prove anything false. You proved that spodumene is mined and spodumene isn’t lithium. Just like iron mined isn’t steel.
Also you’re trying to ignore the context, which is that ‘EVs bad cause children are forced to mine lithium’. Which proves you’re not arguing in good faith.
Pretty disingenuous, that's like me saying "gas doesn't come from underground because it's actually refined from petrol and the petrol isn't underground anymore when it's refined"
More like saying “EVs are bad because lithium is mined by children”.
Then when it is proven that it is not mined, let alone by children, you linking to an article of some rare method of mining spodumene that isn’t done by children and you pretending that is what the discussion is about.
I was answering your message, I'm not the person that talked about children in the first place, you're message was "it's not mined AND its not done by children", that's two separate affirmations, I only replied to the first one yet you keep bringing up the second one.
Mining is one way Lithium is produced, therefore you were wrong. Doesn't matter that it's rare, your first point was that it doesn't happen at all, which is false.
You inserted yourself into a conversation about how “EVs are bad because children have to mine lithium to make them”.
You’re trying to change the subject to ‘look I found this rare method of mining something that is not lithium, it doesn’t matter that it is rare in the context of the manufacturing of all EVs’.
That is like saying ‘I don’t need to work for a living because look at this rare example of someone winning the lottery’.
Context matters.
Spodumene is not lithium.
Your rare example of mining some thing that is not lithium isn’t relevant in a discussion about children mining lithium for EVs.
You’re trying to argue semantics in bad faith.
"That thing we mine to produce lithium doesn't count as humans mining to produce lithium."
You:
“If you ignore the fact that spodumene isn’t lithium…
and the fact that children aren’t mining it…
and the fact that it isn’t happening enough to be relevant to the conversation…
Then I’m totally right!”
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/92bfcdec-de10-4581-bfc1-7d136e3ae9ca.webp
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene
Spodumene is a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminium inosilicate, LiAl(SiO3)2What's that? The lithium is inside the mineral that's... Mined?
As of 2019, around half of lithium is extracted from mineral ores, which mainly consist of spodumene.Damn, that's very rare, isn't it?
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-measure-ban-products-mineral-mined-child-labor-100610654
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/child-labour-behind-smart-phone-and-electric-car-batteries/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/02/08/battery-push-by-tesla-and-other-ev-makers-raises-child-labor-concerns/
https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/china-lithium-ion-batteries-child-labour-us-trade-war
Your first three articles are about children mining COBALT in Africa. Not mining lithium like I said.
Cobalt is not required for making EVs. It is just an ingredient in one of the many different battery types.
Your 4th link is about using child labor in China to build batteries. Not mine material.
Conclusion: you either didn’t read the articles or you are trying to move the goalpost.
What about the other two links? 🤔
Theres 4 links that I see. I commented on the first 3 then the 4th.
If that went unnoticed by you then how is anyone supposed to trust your research on the subject?
Oh sorry, I skipped "three"
I wonder how many words you “skipped” while you “researched” the subject. 🤔
And they're needed in the construction of Lithium-Ion batteries, which the vast majority of EVs use, you're clearly arguing in bad faith over semantics. My bad, since children are dying mining for some other mineral it's okay, my mistake.
Again, cobalt isn’t needed to make batteries and there are many other battery chemistries that can be used in EVs. If that is really a concern of yours then you would be arguing for EV manufacturers to use a different battery chemistry. Which they are already transitioning to.
But you aren’t arguing for manufacturers to change battery chemistry. You’re cherry picking information to argue that EVs are the same as ICEs vehicles. Which makes your intentions obvious.
You argue against EVs then claim to want to end car dependency. So you want everyone riding busses and trains run on diesel?
Climate change is real and we need to end our dependency on fossil fuels to prevent the extinction of our species and EVs are a required step in doing that.
No matter how you power it, bringing 6000lbs of steel with you to go anywhere or do anything is unsustainable.
It's not even just that! Bringing a thing that takes a 10'x20' space to store with you everywhere is unsustainable.
Even a 2000lb Mazda Miata takes up the same number of parking spaces -- one -- as a Ford Excursion, which means it contributes just as much to parking lots destroying walkability as the big SUV does. It also contributes just as much to the "need" to widen roads, since you can only have one car per lane and the longitudinal space is dominated by safe following distance, not the length of the vehicle itself.
The bottom line is that all cars ruin cities, even the small ones. (And before somebody chimes in with "but whatabout Kei cars/compact parking spaces," I'll note that Japan doesn't even let you buy any car -- including a Kei car -- without proof that you have an off-street parking space to store it in, and such spaces are far and few in between in cities since Japan's zoning code is relatively sane. In other words, the total number of cars is substantially limited and that's the saving grace, not the Kei cars themelves.)
I upvoted you despite this inaccuracy.
The problem with electric cars is that they're only a marginal improvement over fossil-fuel cars (note: not the same as "ICE")*, when, as you said, what we need are the transformative gains from ending car-dependency. (I.e., changing the zoning code to encourage walkable density instead of prohibiting it and ending subsidies on car infrastructure.)
(* IMO internal combustion is not the right distinction to make, since things like biodiesel and gasoline synthesized from CO2+H20+electricity could be carbon-neutral too.)
Zoning for walkability is vastly more important even than better public transport, as is infrastructure for biking. The "EVs" we should really be talking about are e-bikes.
The big thing is that you need to plan for end to end integration.
Walking > Bikes > E bikes > Trains > Busses > EV vehicles > ICE vehicles.
Most will likely be needed (e.g. someone needs to stock the inner city supermarkets, and you can't do that by bus), but we should be optimising for that whole chain.
First of all, I broadly agree with you. The following is meant to be a "yes, and," not a "no, but."
That statement has a car-centric assumption built in: in a properly-designed city, grocery shopping isn't necessarily done in "supermarkets" to begin with. Smaller stores, in turn, could be restocked via smaller vehicles.
You will still need shops, and they will still need stocking up. That means delivery access. Larger delivery vehicles are a lot more efficient, and so less are needed. You likely will always want a controlled way to get transit sized vans in and out. I would rather that was planned in, in a controlled manner, rather than left to big business, or bodge jobs. E.g. by back delivery roads. Underground would be perfect, but generally isn't viable.
You also need access for construction and maintenance.
Unfortunately, these requirements also make a vehicle centric model easy for cities, and so, by extension, car centric. Many places default to this. Finding a viable solution requires getting a balance (enough road access to keep places supplied, but good enough support and incentives to keep unnecessary cars out).
The idea that pedestrianized streets are always blocked off to literally everything (including emergency vehicles, construction vehicles, overnight deliveries, etc.) is a common misconception -- or strawman argument -- but it just isn't true. Lowering or removing a bollard for access by vehicles with a good reason to be there is an obvious no-brainer.
Yeah, and importantly, a lot of these deliveries can be done at night, when there are far fewer pedestrians around. And long-term, I bet things like local freight rail or cargo trams could be used to deliver to larger, higher throughput stores:
Sir, you’re on “fuckcars”, get your measured reasonable response out of here. All that people want to hear is “cars bad”.
Some of us are actually interested in the practicalities of reducing both car use, and the damage cars do.