3D render of rows of new 12V car batteries
Although electric vehicles (EVs) are often referred to as being “zero-emission,” mining for the minerals used in their batteries is harmful to the environment, experts admit. Environmentalists have also long questioned whether the manufacturing and ultimate disposal of these batteries negates the positive aspects of a vehicle that emits no emissions.
The mining process requires giant diesel trucks and fossil-fuel-powered refineries, producing a significant carbon footprint. As a result, building an EV actually does more damage to the climate than building a gas car. EVs create additional negative impacts beyond carbon emissions: They disrupt habitats, pollute with runoff or other waste and people can suffer in other ways (worker poisonings, child labor, the rights of indigenous communities, etc.). However, study after study shows EVs still provide an environmental benefit over building and using a gas-powered vehicle. The size of these benefits varies – by vehicle, the source of electricity used to charge it, and a host of other factors – but the overall trend is obvious.
“The results were clearer than we thought, actually,” says Georg Bieker, from the International Council on Clean Transportation, the group that busted Volkswagen for cheating on its emissions tests several years ago. Building a battery is an environmental cost that’s paid once, noted Bieker, but gasoline’s environmental cost is ongoing, paid again and again.
The carbon pollution from burning gasoline and diesel in vehicles is the top contributor to climate change in the U.S. And there are other costs: Oil spills; funding for corrupt oil-rich regimes; the illnesses and preventable deaths caused by pollution from fossil fuels.
In the end, EVs are still cleaner than a comparable gas car, experts say. And new technologies are making them even cleaner during the mining process – like “direct lithium extraction,” which produces a much smaller footprint. Manufacturers are also using less cobalt in their batteries because of the horrific mining conditions and scientists are investigating sodium as an alternative to lithium. Last but not least, battery minerals can be recycled. This won’t meaningfully reduce the need for mining until huge numbers of EVs have reached the end of their lifespan. But eventually, the same molecules of lithium and nickel could be used for many generations of cars – something that can’t be said for fossil fuels.
Source: NPR