Electric vehicle emissions myths

[Suff]

Constantly I get the response that EV'S cause emissions and will not solve any problems.

So the US environment protection agency did the math on EV verses a petrol engined car.



You can find the document here.

In the description below it explains the bars and colours.

Above, the blue bar represents emissions associated with the battery. The orange bars encompass the rest of the vehicle manufacturing (e.g., extracting materials, manufacturing and assembling other parts, and vehicle assembly) and end-of-life (recycling or disposal). The gray bars represent upstream emissions associated with producing gasoline or electricity (U.S. mix), and the yellow bar shows tailpipe emissions during vehicle operations.

The next time I'm told EV vehi les will not reduce emissions of CO2, because of X, Y, Z, I will refer back here.

It is quite visual. Bar on the left, total emissions. Bar on the right, total emissions. Also be aware this is US mix. The US emissions for power generation are significantly higher than the UK.

The one on the right is EV.

There is no discussion on this. Just fossil fuel led disinformation.

[Workingman]

Love the made up myths from the article. Talk about click-bait. See below:

Myth #1: Electric vehicles are worse for the climate than gasoline cars because of the power plant emissions.
Myth #2: Electric vehicles are worse for the climate than gasoline cars because of battery manufacturing.
Myth #3: There is nowhere to charge.
Myth #4: Electric vehicles don’t have enough range to handle daily travel demands.
Myth #5: Electric vehicles only come as sedans.
Myth #6: Electric vehicles are not as safe as comparable gasoline vehicles.

#1. Nobody says that. What they do say is that EVs are not as "green" as claimed and definitely not a suitable replacement in many cases and in many parts of the world.
#2. Again, not said. What is said is that the production of batteries is (FF) energy intensive and also that the mining of the materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt is hugely environmentally damaging, but that is just brushed under the carpet.
#3. Not nowhere, but nowhere near enough.
#4. It was true in the beginning, but not now, and most of us agree on that.
#5. What!?
#6. Never been said.

However, what is not a myth is that building and maintaining the charging infrastructure needed to accommodate the increase in EVs will be massively CO2 intensive, but those emissions will not be allocated to the vehicles in the same way as the production of ffs is for ICE. They will simply be washed away. As will the fact that we will all pay, not just the EV users.

Nobody says that EVs will not reduce CO2 emissions per vehicle, but some of us are not convinced that they are as "green" as is claimed - that's the discussion, and it will go on whether you like it or not.

[Suff]

#1. Nobody says that. What they do say is that EVs are not as "green" as claimed and definitely not a suitable replacement in many cases and in many parts of the world.

<snip>

However, what is not a myth is that building and maintaining the charging infrastructure needed to accommodate the increase in EVs will be massively CO2 intensive, but those emissions will not be allocated to the vehicles in the same way as the production of ffs is for ICE. They will simply be washed away. As will the fact that we will all pay, not just the EV users.

Nobody says that EVs will not reduce CO2 emissions per vehicle, but some of us are not convinced that they are as "green" as is claimed - that's the discussion, and it will go on whether you like it or not.

Yes and that is used to try and sway the general population to do nothing.

Going back to that graph. For every EV you put on the roads you take out 2 EV's worth of direct emissions.

Constantly the refrain is "it is not as green". Then they go on and on about One Time costs. Just as you have done. Charging infra. One Time Cost. Vehicle driving every single day, constant rolling cost in CO2 emissions.

In fact the worst of this that I have seen is people going on about the infra build out cost of a 14mw wind turbine. By the time it has operated for 3 months it has paid back over and over again.

The reason the EPA had had to do this is because of what you are talking about above.

It's not a green as is presented you say. So effing what. Is it less emitting than NOT doing anything, over a 10 year period, even counting in every single cost and even counting in new power infrastructure and new grid expansion. The answer is resoundingly YES and what is more the answer also is YES that as the one time costs are paid off it becomes even LESS emissions.

All this "It is not as green as they say" is exactly the same as "we have no evidence that smoking causes cancer"! Not only that it is the same damned people putting this stuff out there.

What "It is not as green as they say" actually means "Don't bother we'll be fine as we are".

Tell me what is better. Cleaning CO2 now, bit by bit, where the reductions become Larger over time and not smaller? Or. Do nothing till it's all exactly as green as they say it? Which, for the uninitiated, means NEVER.

So the whole EPA article is about educating people. First that it does SOMETHING and it does it NOW. Secondly that there are arguments out there which are designed to cause indecision and to keep up the status quo.

And I will refer to it. Over an over and over again. Every time I hear the "but it's not that good so we shouldn't do anything". Because that just means selling our progeny down the river because we can't be bothered to help them. Or pay for it.

Unless, of course, you do want to live in a home with no electricity and candles for light and another blanket for heat in -10c temperatures??? Because that is what the neanderthal "ECO Warriors" want for you. At least if you take small steps they are forced to admit you are doing something which will get better faster.

But, no, let's all sing together. "It is not as green as they say it is". GREEN has absolutely Zero to do with it and I keep telling the idiots that. But they won't listen. Zero carbon at the point of use. Yes. Green? NO and NO and NO over and over again. Environmentally sustainable, yes, GREEN NO. Non environmentally polluting, YES, GREEN, NO.

Reducing total lifetime CO2 levels, today, now, YES for EV. Anything else? NO.

[Workingman]

Triggered eh? I like it.

Let's go for another - one you EV zealots always body swerve - the environment. Namely the mining of lithium, nickel and cobalt. Today there are relatively few EVs out there and it is already a disaster. Now think of all those hundreds of millions of Tuk Tuks and scooters being electrified. They will be on top of the 70 million or so cars, vans and lorries p.a. the mineral mining will soon become a mega disaster, but it's only the environment.

Sure the tailpipe CO2 emissions will be reduced but the cost to the physical environment will be enormous. We ignore it at our peril.

[Suff]

Oh get off the lithium kick. Most lithium is "mined" using huge dozers with massive buckets from evapourated seawater in massive brine basins. Lithium is only one of the salts mined there.

Lithium is mined from three different deposit types: lithium brine deposits, pegmatite lithium deposits and sedimentary lithium deposits. Each comes with different project requirements, extraction methods and processing times.

Brine deposits, for example, are the most common, accounting for more than half of the world’s lithium resources, but may require longer processing periods. The majority of global lithium production comes from continental lithium brine deposits.

The best example of a continental lithium brine deposit is the 3,000 square kilometer Salar de Atacama in Chile, home to one of the world’s richest deposits of high-grade lithium.

Misdirection after misdirection after misdirection.

You are already so far behind the curve. LFP batteries have virtually zero nickel and zero cobalt. They give a little less power, suffer a bit more from the cold but have more charge cycles. They are 98% recyclable and the recycling scientists have worked out that if you cryo freeze them first you can simply break them up and float the elements off with a bath of differing liquid metals.

If you are going to do the "we mustn't fix the problem because it won't be perfect", at least be up to date.

This month Tesla announced that their extremely high volume mass market vehicle (the cheap one to be built in Mexico first), will contain zero rare earth metals, zero cobalt and trace elements of lithium. Dramatically less copper due to a 48v vehicle electric system and dramatically faster build.

You are arguing issues from the first decade of the 21st century and we're already in the 3rd decade. These issues are being engineered out of the vehicles as we speak.

Delay, delay, delay. Don't fix it, no let's just complain that it's too hard and causes too many problems and won't be perfect.

Footer on one of the posters I talk to.

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

Quite.

[Workingman]

Oh Suff, do get off the misdirection thng, you are the master of it.

The one-off cost for the charging infrastructure will be paid for by all of us, whether we have a battery toy or not. It's not like the old days when the ff companies had to provide the fuel stops to sell their wares, now we all chip in - users or not.

And VED of some sort is coming down the line to end the 'free ride', as is 'smart' charging (home or public) to recoup the loss of fuel duty. No government is going to give up £ billions in duties, you do know that.

I am not saying that 'we mustn't fix the problem', that's your take. What I am saying is that it will not be as cheap and easy as you would like to make out. Come the day BEV users will have to fork out, somehow. The free ride and buying bribes will end, bank on it, no matter how many times you bombard us with your skewed 'facts' and colourful US based figures graphs.

[Suff]

And just how "easy" and "cheap" do you think combating climate change with 550ppm CO2 in the atmosphere will be?

Already economies of scale have driven down EV battery costs. Smart engineering is removing most of the harmful stuff from EV batteries and recycling will trap the rest into a sustainable and controllable state.

These things are happening, right now, because people are willing to pay the price of action now to reduce the crippling effect of CO2 50 years down the line.

If you do not engage and build for the future, things will never get better.

Simply removing diesel vehicles from the roads will save over 3,000 lives, every year, in the UK. Direct deaths.

But apparently it is not easy enough or cheap enough.

Please take a second to see it from my side. Electric trucks are now a reality, all we need to do is force the move and supply and charging will follow. Ditto fossil fuelled cars.

3,000 lives or cheap and convenient. I'm trying not to judge. When we had no alternative the cost was the cost. Now we have an alternative the cost is too much.
It is similar to the scorn and contempt I pour on those detractors of self driving in the US who just want to hate Tesla and demand total perfection before moving on.

You want to know the reality of that situation? In 2022 42,000 people died of accident ts on US roads. The overwhelming majority of poor driving.

You want to put that into context?

Vietnam cost the US 58,000 lives. How about an even better one. In the last 15 years more people died on US roads than UK citizens died in WW2.

It is the same argument. It is not good enough, cheap enough, "green" enough.

So we let the body count rise.

And these are just the tip. Of the iceberg compared to uncontrolled climate change. Sober and sensible estimates put the world's ability to support a population of 2bn in unmitigated climate change. Pity about the other 6bn but, you know, it wasn't cheap enough or easy enough.

If you truly believe those figures (and I do), can you imagine the effort it takes to simply state the facts and not let the emotion leak in?

I would pay the price but the cost of the financial crisis left me without the resources. What I do instead is give my time to talk about it. Time is the most precious commodity I have today.

[Workingman]

How very emotive. Deaths due to CO2, eh, what about those due to the damaged and depleted environment?

'No comment' is the usual answer.

Talking Heads - We're on the road to nowhere, springs to mind.