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Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw materials than EVs

Roger B
Another piece of meaningless green propaganda from E&T.

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2021/03/fossil-fuel-cars-waste-hundreds-of-times-more-raw-materials-than-evs/

How can people write such rubbish? This is based on the assumption that electricity arrives at the charging socket of an EV without the consumption of resources. Where does it come from, unicorn farts? Where does the energy used for recycling the batteries come from? What other materials are used in battery recycling? Definitely green tinted glasses.


  • 0
    Statistics!

    The article also mentions gigafactories (or factories, as they were when I started work). I presume they involve a lot of concrete.....

    What if we just made cars that lasted longer and were easy to fix any broken/worn bits, that might save resources + smaller factories.

    The stack of oil barrels sounds impressive, would be even higher if we put the oil in beer cans! I fully expect to see this type of comparison very soon, as soon as the ad-men catch on :-)
  • 0
    I think this https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/2021_02_Battery_raw_materials_report_final.pdf is the actual study that the IET article failed to link to.
  • 0
    Thanks Simon, started to read that - it's got a lot of detail in.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    It's only a very few weeks since I saw an academic report that concluded the a battery electric vehicle only became greener than a petrol ICE vehicle after around 80,000 miles. That was supposed to be on a 'whole life carbon footprint' basis. Why does this article say something so different? It seems to be very difficult set the boundaries to make accurate comparisons between different motive powers. It's hugely complex, probably too complex for politicians to get their heads around, which is probably why a lot of the information seems over-simplified.  When I read this current article it did seem a tad like a platform for the battery manufacturing industry. Are batteries the cleanest, greenest way to store power? How about using renewables electricity to manufacture hydrogen by electrolysis? Would that be more sustainable? Gut fele is that it could very well be.
  • 0
    I recently saw a piece on tv that sugested that an efficient way to store electricity might be to refrigerate air to liquid when in surplus, and use an air engine/turbine to generate when needed.
  • 0
    Iain Sturrock:

    It's only a very few weeks since I saw an academic report that concluded the a battery electric vehicle only became greener than a petrol ICE vehicle after around 80,000 miles. That was supposed to be on a 'whole life carbon footprint' basis. Why does this article say something so different? It seems to be very difficult set the boundaries to make accurate comparisons between different motive powers. It's hugely complex, probably too complex for politicians to get their heads around, which is probably why a lot of the information seems over-simplified.  When I read this current article it did seem a tad like a platform for the battery manufacturing industry. Are batteries the cleanest, greenest way to store power? How about using renewables electricity to manufacture hydrogen by electrolysis? Would that be more sustainable? Gut fele is that it could very well be.


    If you're using renewables, then hydrogen is less efficient.  The whole process of getting electricity from the wind turbine to the motor is far more long-winded, with losses at every stage. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127660_battery-electric-or-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vw-lays-out-why-one-is-the-winner


    But it may work out the other way round if your source of energy is natural gas.  See Figure 10 of https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f9/thomas_fcev_vs_battery_evs.pdf


  • 0
    The battery report itself is not unreasonable but E&Ts take on it, without referencing the report, was pure greenwash.


    It seems that the key point of the battery materials report is that if we can reduce the materials content of EV batteries by a significant percentage and if we can work out how to recycle most of them then EVs start to look more attractive. Today Iain Sturrock's comment about an 80,000 mile energy payback is probably correct.


    Work is being carried out on safe recycling of Li Ion batteries but it is early days.

    https://www.theengineer.co.uk/birmingham-battery-recycling-facility-completed/


    Is it better to get this stuff sorted before the dash for EVs otherwise we risk increasing pollution rather than reducing it?
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Maybe you need it in a slightly tongue in cheek presentation ?

    this article on Fully Charged really puts it home, but maybe you will doubt the numbers?

    https://youtu.be/mk-LnUYEXuM

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