To what extent are electric cars environmentally friendly?

For an entire millennium, ever since the release of the first popular and commercially available car for the people, the model-T Ford in 1908 (History, 2019), our society and our industries relied on fossil fuelled powered transport such as the gasoline and diesel vehicles to help humanity rapidly kickstart the economy and improve our quality of life by offering a relatively affordable and effective way to get around. It is not until the late 1960s and early 1970s with “Soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages -- peaking with the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo” (Matulka, 2014) in the United States, and in many other countries using foreign fuel, that interests in alternative fuels started to grow. At this time, (U.S.) Congress established the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) which regulated the average fuel consumption of each fleet of cars that manufacturers must achieve (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2006). Alongside this, Congress also passed the ‘Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1976’ which helped support development of Electric and Hybrid technology (Matulka, 2014). This spurred on existing automakers, such as General Motors, to also started developing cars to suit that demand (Matulka, 2014). One of the vehicles developed was the EV, or the electric vehicle. Electric vehicles were, however, not invented recently, in fact, it was popular even before the modern combustion engine. But due to the limitations in the technology, EVs in the era between 1828-1920 was surpassed by gasoline powered vehicles in range, convenience and cost (Chan, 2013). Now, with improvements in efficiency and battery technology, we see EVs that can reach ranges that can match that of their gasoline counterparts and charge at speeds that was never believed was possible. The question now is whether this new generation of vehicles will actually be more beneficial for the environment than the plain and traditional gasoline, diesel vehicles, and are EV’s really the answer to our environmental problems?

One of the main problems of the production of electric cars are that the batteries require precious metals that require a method of extracting that can harm the environment. Lithium is one of those metals that is “essential to our battery-fuelled world” (Draper, 2019) as the batteries produced with lithium tend to have a much higher energy density than other battery technologies (Agusdinata, 2018). Lithium is extracted from either Lithium chloride salts found in brine lakes and as a mineral from igneous rocks (Eason, 2010). So far, the most popular method is extracting from lithium chloride salts as it is the most cost-effective route to obtaining Lithium. Lithium chloride salts are extracted from salt brine lakes by channelling some of the brine into a large pool where it can be removed of all it’s water by evaporating under the sun, the left-over white residue is the lithium chloride salts. The brine lakes with the more lucrative lithium tend to be underground (Draper, 2019) where machines pump the liquid to the surface for extraction. The largest salt flat in Chile, the Salar de Atacama, was a victim to lithium mining and as a result the ground water table has been lowered which caused nearby rivers to dry up. Livo (n.d.) and Knepper (n.d.) can agree that the Salar de Atacama has been a salt plain for a very long time and, the reason for being a salt plain wasn’t because of Lithium extraction, but in one of the “driest place on Earth” (Livo, n.d.)(Knepper, n.d.) some water does exist and it plays an important role to those using it. An example of this is the communities that are close to the salt flats which rely on water from nearby reservoirs for drinking, washing, industries and other necessities. By having firms pumping brine from the ground, as much as 95% of the water content of said brine would be wasted as evaporation dries out the solution (Heubl, 2019). As a consequence, nearby aquifers also dry out which is a problem for those who depend on it for the above said reasons (Heubl, 2019). Heubl (2019), Livo (n.d.) and Knepper (n.d.) shows research that indicate the lack of water being reintroduced into that region compared to the vast amounts of water being evaporated for lithium extraction. The locals aren’t the only ones affected, the huge water consumption is also drying out the soil in that area, which is already comparatively dry in the first place. “Wenjuan Liu and her research colleagues at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University found that lithium mining in the area bore strong negative correlations with the vegetation and soil moisture – meaning, the more mining, the rarer plants and water become in the soil” (Ben, 2019). In a research paper by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2020) there are links shown between the increased risk of desertification and global warming. With the lack of moisture in the soil, which contributes to the lack of vegetation, the greenhouse gases will see an increase which furthermore causes global warming. If lithium mines continue to evaporate the water of that area, it won’t be environmentally sustainable for the local communities, wildlife and vegetation. As demand for lithium continues to rise and no change is seen in the way lithium mines currently manages the natural resources, this problem would only continue to negatively impact the environment and the local communities if no action is taken. Lithium, however, is only one of many natural resources used in EV batteries, let alone the entire rest of the car, so if any of those resources are used irresponsibly, the environmental impact of the EVs will only increase in severity.

(Jaisinghani, 2017) can agree that most people still rely on their countries’ power grid for electricity in these recent years. Adding to this fact is that the people who possesses an EV would have charged their batteries with power from the grid, therefore, whether their country uses renewable or non-renewable energy for power generation would help us verify the real carbon footprint of driving an EV. “Renewable energy, often referred to as clean energy, comes from natural sources or processes that are constantly replenished” (Shinn, 2018). This includes solar energy, hydro-electric, wind-power et cetera. Some can agree that nuclear power is non-renewable despite nuclear energy itself being renewable, the power stations that exist now still uses a limited supply of radioactive material (Morse,2013). The Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (2019) shows that renewable energy only takes a small part of the total electricity produced taking 26.2% of the global electricity generation but their projections tells us that renewable energy is going to become more widespread expecting to rise to 45% in 2040. If this is going to become true, then it would help to further minimise the carbon footprint of the EV’s in the future as the energy they are consuming would come mostly from clean renewable energy. However, the trend for non-renewable power generation would seem to continue to make up the majority of the world’s electricity consumption for a couple of decades. The next question to be asked should be: are EV’s that run on a non-renewable power grid more polluting than traditional gasoline cars? Data from the International Energy Agency (2014) shows that recently coal takes up around 40% of the global electricity production from fossil fuels. This is probably because of coal plants are cheaper per kWh produced which is why most developing countries still use this as their main source of power. Taking in the best-case scenario for coal power, we will be taking Poland’s plans to build the most efficient coal plant which will reach a theoretical highest efficiency of 46% for a coal plant in 2018 (Şengül, 2018). Added to this the energy losses between the coal plant and our homes “6% – 2% in transmission and 4% in distribution” (Jordan, 2015), we have 41.4% of the energy from coal makes it to the batteries. Once the electricity makes it from the power station to our homes, energy is lost before it gets to our wheels. EV’s loss of energy when charging, the U.S. Department of Energy made estimates showing between 84% to 93% efficiency. EVs also losses energy when powering the motor as the heat and mechanical friction causes it to lose energy; “EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels” (U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.). All of this power loss equates to around 30% (2sf) of the coal burnt is used to move an EV (taking in the maximum efficiency numbers). This is more if not equally efficient than a typical gasoline car which uses 12-30% of the fuel’s energy to turn the wheels (U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.). However other sources show different results that indicate that despite the fact that some EVs use electricity produced by fossil fuels, their carbon footprint is considerably smaller than most cars on the road today, “the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute finds that gas-powered vehicles need to average 55.4 miles per gallon in the U.S. in order to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a battery-electric vehicle” (USA Today, 2017).

These couple of decades saw an increasing interest in sustaining the environment. In this essay we looked at the multiple consequences of adopting electric cars as a method to save the environment. At the moment EVs are not fully environmentally friendly like what most are led to believe (and in some circumstances, become less so than its fossil fuel burning counterpart), but with every new innovation, consequences are to be expected. Despite this, whether EVs will become more environmentally friendly will be dependent on how we can improve and minimise these drawbacks. Like with the first attempt at an electric vehicle in the late 1800’s, there was not enough technology to help to out-weigh the restrictions. But with new ideas and further advances in science, I believe we can reach the EVs true potential and make it unnecessary to burn fossil fuels for transport. We learnt that currently the EV is not perfect, but we can do a number of things to change that. By reducing our reliance on non-renewable energy sources like coal and oil, we can reduce the EVs carbon footprint by removing its reliance on fossil fuel generated electricity. Regulating resource gathering by preventing externalities from reaching nearby locals and the nearby wildlife can also help to reduce the environmental impacts of EVs. Also, by reducing the resources used in manufacturing, reusing used parts from EV’s, recycling dead batteries and improving on the overall efficiency (in manufacturing, driving etc.), we can minimise the waste that EVs currently produce. There are lessons to be learnt from each mistake, and like how we helped to drastically improve the efficiency and carbon footprint of our gasoline (and diesel) cars, I believe that with further innovation in our sciences we can help to improve minimise the consequences of EVs. “It is really rewarding to learn from history and to look ahead at the challenges and opportunities” (Chan, 2013).