Electric Vehicles:
Off-Ramp or Detour?
November 26, 2022
Nine miles-per-hour. That was the top speed of Andreas Flocken’s Elektrowagen. It had iron tires, an electric motor, a look that reminds of a baby carriage. The year is 1888 – three later than the introduction of Karl Benz’s Motorwagen, the first gas-fueled car. Today we’ve decided to repeat the cycle. Batteries containing lithium and nickel power a new wave of transportation that claim zero emissions for a cleaner Earth and lighter conscience. But does this reboot of abandoned projects solve global, trade, or energy concerns?
For smaller vessels, electric vehicles (EVs) can offer some advantages over gasoline models. Also some disadvantages. If we look at a well-to-wheel comparison in energy efficiency and CO2 emissions, we’d find battery power is the better option – minus a few caveats. Lacking tailpipes, exhaust for these cars lies upstream where electricity is created. Power plants using natural gas, uranium (nuclear) and coal release tons of undesirables to the environment. Note nuclear waste. Current generation alone accounts for a 50% or more loss in usable energy; transmission to the outlet another six. Like gasoline at the pump, each of these finite resources must be extracted from the earth and processed. And for EVs, you can also add critical metals needed to make those half-ton batteries that get heavier with expectations.
The primary one, lithium, comes from rock and underground brines. Those salt-rich waters lie beneath dry lakebeds called salars largely found in South America. They’re pumped to the surface into large evaporation ponds. Once that content reaches an ideal level it’s then pumped to a recovery plant for filtration, treatment and extraction. Overall, the process takes between eight months and three years. Chile, the second-largest lithium contributor, has lost 65% of the region’s water supply from these efforts that consume 500,000 gallons for every ton extracted.
Gathering it from rock requires strips mines. Take the one planned at Thacker Pass in Nevada, involving nearly 5,700 acres. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management states it would be an open pit 2.3 miles long, a mile wide, and almost 400 feet deep. Operations would burn over 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel every day therein and use 3,230 gallons of water per minute. Complementing those figures are the 5,800 tons of sulfuric acid needed daily to process the lithium. They do so by separating the pure metal from the tailings at 482 degrees Fahrenheit .
These tailings (contaminated waste) would be stored in “dry stacks” with water content of at least 46% and amount to 353 million cubic yards of waste, 350 feet high, and would affect over 1,100 acres of land. Lithium mining has been found to impact fish as far as 150 miles downstream, and let’s not even delve into the red river from nickel mining in Norilsk, Russia.
Turning away from red seas and the novelty of making cars more like Power Wheels, the focal point of switching to electric vehicles has always been CO2 emissions. It’s marketed as the decisive move in stopping climate change. However, in order to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm (parts-per-million) by 2050, a common figure is that greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized countries would have to decrease by 80%. A draft of data used by the EPA estimates transport accounted for 15% of global CO2 emissions in 2019. The previous publication showed 14% in 2010. Broken down further, road transport was 10%. By those figures, electric vehicles would bring a reduction in the single-digits.
Proponents of EVs would argue that this transition will reduce our dependency on foreign oil. But what about our need for trade of their newly demanded resources. Australia, Chile, and China are the leading producers of lithium, with estimates that Chile has 50% of the world’s reserves. As for nickel – Indonesia, the Philippines and Canada top the chart. Any mining domestically comes with environmental issues the same opponents of oil here have long fought to stamp out.
This brings us to one of lithium’s biggest concerns: what to do with the batteries once they drop to 70-80% of their useful capacity. The options are disposal, recycle the metal, or reuse. Implications of the first are not only toxic but also a fire hazard. Currently, less than 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled globally, mostly for their cobalt. And incentive for the EV variety erodes as manufacturers work to lower prices by reducing that content. While traditional car batteries have six cells, EVs have hundreds to thousands with several cell types and shapes that don’t lend themselves as well to the process. Further issues surround the fact that present cost of lithium recovery is greater than the cost of new production. To mitigate, many have proposed giving these batteries a second use as backup storage for solar power that could supplement the electric grid until they’re no longer viable.
So, are EVs the way forward? Or, if not, what is? Their previous downfall – cost, charging time, and range – have all improved, though true expense has been masked by government subsidies and greenwashing.
Charging can happen at three levels: 1, 2, and “Fast”. The first two are on household current (110v and 220v, respectively), going from empty to full in 40-50 or 4-10 hours. Fast happens at 400-1,000 volts and can get to 80% in 20-60 minutes. It slows at that point to protect the battery, and finishing the last 10% can take as long as the first 90. Cold temperatures may also slow charging.
Range can vary from 150-400 miles, depending on vehicle model and battery size. Shorter if towing. Those estimates are at full charge under moderate conditions, even though 20-80% is the ideal operating spectrum for longest battery life. Studies by AAA have shown that driving EVs in 95-degree temps with the A/C on can reduce driving range by 17%. At 20 degrees with the heat on, range declines 41%. Those numbers have been disputed. What isn’t is that temperature and load affect battery performance, and passengers like to be comfortable.
Now scalability factors in. Researchers find that by 2030, upfitting a charging station with 20+ fast-chargers would require as much electrical capacity as an outdoor stadium. The projected power needs for a big truck stop by 2035 would equal that of a small town. By 2045 they’d nearly double. These transmission upgrades can take as long as eight years to construct with each carrying a price tag in the millions. Add the expansive demand of data centers, and you can imagine a day when even stepping outside might make your hair stand on end.
The current reply on EVs would probably be that they’re neither a clean or clear-cut solution. As for bolstering the electric grid, circumstances vary from the Midwest to the Coast. There are many places where building the infrastructure isn’t economical. We could still have brown and blackouts. And various factors nix reliance on wind and solar for all our energy needs.
These realities aren’t lost on automakers who still entertain plug-in hybrids that create options. Some interests are betting on hydrogen fuel cells; others hydrogen engines. Like battery EVs, fuel-cell vehicles are propelled by electricity, but it’s produced onboard by the reaction of hydrogen passing through a membrane to combine with oxygen. They fill their tanks at hydrogen stations in the same manner as gasoline vehicles with similar fueling times. While they do have an exhaust pipe, it only releases water vapor. The batteries they require are there for added acceleration and only need about 1% of an EV’s capacity with weight under 100 lbs.
Where fuel-cell vehicles struggle is the hydrogen supply chain and, like EVs, scalability. The current stations in California can only accommodate a handful before going offline to repressurize. Another challenge is producing clean hydrogen. A popular method of using steam to pull it from natural gas releases CO2. A new method uses electrolyzers that split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. Those elements later recombine during vehicle operation. However, the production and handling of hydrogen is less energy efficient than using electricity for a battery. Substitutes are being explored using bio-ethanol from waste in forestry and agriculture.
All said, we find ourselves at a crossroad. If our aim is to minimize environmental impact, maybe an alternative fuel is the route. If our only aim is to reduce fossil fuel use, maybe it's large batteries. But the real costs of EVs shouldn't be in our blind spot.
