Electric Vehicles: An Ideal Solution?

Are electric vehicles truly a perfect solution to the problem of air pollution, or it is it actually a double-edged sword?

By Muhan Sun

Introduction

In the past few decades, electric cars have become all the rage, garnering support from various governments, as well as individual companies. They reduce emissions in large cities, cut down on noise pollution and have far more efficient engines than the standard internal combustion vehicle. All in all, electric vehicles seem like a perfect solution. However, if one takes a closer look, cracks start appearing in this perfect facade.

Where does the energy come from?

Supporters of electric vehicles will constantly reference the fact that these vehicles have zero emissions. While a traditional car releases around 6 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every single year, an electric car fulfills its function without contributing to the pollution in our atmosphere. But the fact still stands that every vehicle needs something to power them. So where does the electricity for electric cars come from?

Therein lies the rub.

It turns out that a considerable percentage of the world’s energy is being produced by non-renewable, heavily polluting power sources. Foremost among these are coal (40%) and natural gas (22%). It is not unreasonable to assume, with 62% of the world’s energy stemming from these sources, that most electric cars draw energy from them. Effectively, electric cars have simply shifted the polluting component from their engines to the power plants.

Yet these are only the problems present currently, where the number of electric cars is still relatively low. What is going to happen when we push for complete electrification? A rise in electric cars would be matched by a rise in demand for electricity. What follows would be a search for cheap, quick, and effective ways to fulfill that demand. What we are left with is a huge increase in coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants, these being the cheapest and most reliable energy sources that we have. In the end, a transfer from traditional cars to electric cars would only be continued pollution, with extra steps.

Storage of Energy

Every electric car requires a battery. Currently, the most common ones are lithium-ion batteries, which require, unsurprisingly, lithium. The mining process for lithium is hugely detrimental to the environment. This is apparent in individual instances, for example in Chile. There, up to 65% of the available water in certain regions is used up to extract it. Another problem arose in China, where the manufacturing plants sprung leaks and large amounts of chemicals seeped into the environment. Similar drawbacks also inconvenience the other necessary components. For example, cobalt, an essential component, is in quite short supply with 50% already used up. Currently, we do not even have sufficient amounts of cobalt on this planet to produce the necessary amount of batteries.

But let us ignore all of this for now and assume that we somehow managed to procure all the resources in the quantities required. The problem remains: How do we dispose of the batteries?

Currently, the recycling process for lithium-ion batteries is still undeveloped, with only 5% of lithium-ion batteries being recycled and an estimated 2 million tons of lithium-ion waste by 2030. That’s a lot of waste that we cannot dispose of and which will only get worse if we continue to blindly manufacture electric cars. Considering all of the technical difficulties present in trying to recycle them and no viable or sustainable alternative as of now, it is highly unlikely that we’ll be able to find a solution to this problem in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

Of course, there are even more problems, such as manufacturing enough electric cars to replace the ca. 1.37 billion non-electric cars in the world right now. All things considered, it seems that electric cars are a shortsighted, ineffectual solution.

At the end of the day, shouldn’t we be spending our money and resources on a more viable course of action?