The widespread view that fossil fuels are “dirty” and
renewables such as wind and solar energy and electric vehicles
are “clean” has become a fixture of mainstream media and policy
assumptions across the political spectrum in developed
countries, perhaps with the exception of the Trump-led US
administration. Indeed the ultimate question we are led to
believe is how quickly can enlightened Western governments, led
by an alleged scientific consensus, “decarbonize” with clean
energy in a race to save the world from impending climate
catastrophe. The ‘net zero by 2050’ mantra, calling for carbon
emissions to be completely mitigated within three decades, is
now the clarion call by governments and intergovernmental
agencies around the developed world, ranging from several EU member states
and the UK, to the International Energy
Agency and the International
Monetary Fund.
Mining out of sight, out of mind
Let’s start with Elon Musk’s Tesla. In an astonishing
achievement for a company that has now posted four consecutive
quarters of profits, Tesla is now the
world’s most valuable automotive company. Demand for EVs
is set to soar, as government policies subsidize the purchase of
EVs to replace the internal combustion engine of gasoline and
diesel-driven cars and as owning a “clean” and “green” car
becomes a moral testament to many a virtue-signaling customer.
Yet, if one looks under the hood of “clean energy”
battery-driven EVs, the dirt found would surprise most. The most
important component in the EV is the lithium-ion rechargeable
battery which relies on critical mineral commodities such as
cobalt, graphite, lithium, and manganese. Tracing the source of
these minerals, in what is called “full-cycle economics”, it
becomes apparent that EVs create a trail of dirt from the mining
and processing of minerals upstream.
A recent United Nations report warns that
the raw materials used in electric car batteries are highly concentrated
in a small number of countries where environmental and labour regulations
are weak or non-existent. Thus, battery production for EVs is driving a
boom in small-scale or “artisanal” cobalt production in the Democratic
Republic of Congo which supplies two thirds of global output of the
mineral. These artisanal mines, which account for up to a quarter of the
country’s production, have been found to be dangerous and
employ child labour.
Mindful of what the image of children scrabbling for hand-dug minerals in
Africa can do to high tech’s clean and green image, most tech and auto
companies using cobalt and other toxic heavy metals avoid direct sourcing
from mines. Tesla Inc. TSLA-0.8%struck a deal last month with
Swiss-based Glencore Plc to buy as much as 6,000 tons of cobalt annually
from the latter’s Congolese mines. While Tesla has said it aims to remove
reputational risks associated with sourcing minerals from countries such
as the DRC where corruption is rampant, Glencore assures buyers that
no hand-dug cobalt is treated at its mechanized mines.
There are 7.2 million battery EVs or
about 1% of the total vehicle fleet today. To get an idea of the scale of
mining for raw materials involved in replacing the world’s gasoline and
diesel-fueled cars with EVs, we can take the example of the UK as provided
by Michael Kelly, the Emeritus Prince Philip
Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. According to
Professor Kelly, if we replace all of the UK vehicle fleet with EVs,
assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation
batteries, we would need the following materials: about twice the annual
global production of cobalt; three quarters of the world’s production
lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world production of neodymium; and
more than half the world’s production of copper in 2018.
And this is just for the UK. Professor Kelly estimates that if we want
the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles, the vast increases
in the supply of the raw materials listed above would go far beyond known
reserves. The environmental and social impact of vastly-expanded mining
for these materials — some of which are highly toxic when mined,
transported and processed – in countries afflicted by corruption and poor
human rights records can only be imagined. The clean and green image of
EVs stands in stark contrast to the realities of manufacturing batteries.
Zero Emissions and All That
Proponents of EVs might counter by saying that despite these evident
environmental and social problems associated with mining in many third
world countries, the case remains that EVs help reduce carbon dioxide
emissions associated with the internal combustion engines run on gasoline
and diesel fuels. According to the reigning climate change narrative, it
is after all carbon dioxide emissions that are threatening environmental
catastrophe on a global scale. For the sake of saving the world, the
climate crusaders of the richer nations might be willing to ignore the
local pollution and human rights violations involved in mining for
minerals and rare earths in Africa, China, Latin America and elsewhere.
While one might question the inherent inequity in imposing such a
trade-off, the supposed advantages of EVs in emitting lower carbon
emissions are overstated according to a peer-reviewed
life-cycle study comparing conventional and electric vehicles. To
begin with, about half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an
electric car come from the energy used to produce the car, especially in
the mining and processing of raw materials needed for the battery. This
compares unfavorably with the manufacture of a gasoline-powered car which
accounts for 17% of the car’s lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions. When a
new EV appears in the show-room, it has already caused 30,000 pounds of
carbon-dioxide emission. The equivalent amount for manufacturing a
conventional car is 14,000 pounds.
Once on the road, the carbon dioxide emissions of EVs depends on the
power-generation fuel used to recharge its battery. If it comes mostly
from coal-fired power plants, it will lead to about 15 ounces of
carbon-dioxide for every mile it is driven—three ounces more than a
similar gasoline-powered car. Even without reference to the source of
electricity used for battery charging, if an EV is driven 50,000 miles
over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means
the EV will actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a
similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of miles. Even if
the EV is driven for 90,000 miles and the battery is charged by cleaner
natural-gas fueled power stations, it will cause just 24% less
carbon-dioxide emission than a gasoline-powered car. As the skeptical
environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg puts it, “This is a far cry
from ‘zero emissions’".
As most ordinary people mindful of keeping within modest budgets choose
affordable gasoline or diesel-powered cars, experts and policy advisors
the world over have felt compelled to tilt the playing field in favor of
EVs. EV subsidies are regressive: given their high upfront cost, EVs are
only affordable for high-income households. It is egregious that EV
subsides are funded by the average tax-payer so that the rich can buy
their EVs at subsidized prices.
The determination not to know or to look away when the facts assail our
beliefs is an enduring frailty of human nature. The tendency
towards group think and confirmation bias, and the will to affirm
the “scientific consensus” and marginalize sceptics, are rife in
considerations by the so-called experts committed to advocating their
favorite cause. In the case of EVs, the dirty secrets of “clean energy”
should seem apparent to all but, alas, there are none so blind as those
who will not see.
