Nothing is perfect: EV mining vs. Oil

"Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle" (1500sand535)
08/12/2020 at 10:01 • Filed to: None

For your time, the only car in the last two years that’s made me want to really go out and test drive a car, Camaro 2.0T 1LE:

Now on to the topic of the day. Just about e very EV article on the Internet is accompanied by a comment from someone who says “but what about the mining effects of the metals needed for the batteries.” As if they only prefer gas vehicles because they are the lesser of two negative environmental and humanitarian impacts on those near and involved in the extraction and transportation of the materials. I enjoy gas cars, drive mine, but also think that EVs show great promise for transportation and think people who demonize them due to the mining are showing a pretty large blind spot.

Just a reminder that oil extraction and transportation is equally problematic to mining materials related to batteries:

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I hope they manage to transport as much of the oil as they can and that this shipwreck has as little of a negative effect as it can.

Have a good Wednesday Oppo.

DISCUSSION (56)

Future next gen S2000 owner > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:21

To be honest, I used to think that way. Mining and refining of the batteries introduced more pollution cradle to grave than a comparable ICE car, but I’m quite sure that isn’t the case any longer.

It always gets a bit sticky as to where cradle to grave really starts and ends but meh. Sure mining can suck and prop up dictators and lead to human rights abuse but so can oil so......

It’s a damn shame about that oil tanker. The coral is dying and this won’t help.

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:24

It’s for sure a knee-jerk reaction to people saying electric cars are better for the environment. The sad thing is, if you look at it from a purely environmental point of view, owning a car for personal use (electric/gas/diesel) at all isn’t very good for mama earth. Sure is convenient though........

DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:25

Engineering explained did a good couple videos on the total impact (including mining), TLDR, EV’s still come out on top. Disclaimer, I’ve been DD’ing a 500e for the past 10 months and never going back to ICE for daily commuting

jminer > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:26

Good Morning!

I like your point but would take it further, oil and gas extraction is far worse on the environment than mining for batteries. The amount of oil spilled in normal operation both during extraction and transport it staggering even not accounting for accidents.

The oil and gas companies have done untold damage to our environment and will frankly never be held accountable.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By
08/12/2020 at 10:30

I keep debating whether my next car will be a more fun ICE car like a KIA Stinger or a plug-in hybrid like a Chevy Volt. More and more I am leaning towards the plug in hybrid...as much as my heart wants something like the Stinger the hybrid is just a better value and makes more sense for the commuting it would mostly be used for.

kanadanmajava1 > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:34

I think that the worst aspect of the battery materials is their problematic recycling. Lead could be recycled quite well from used lead acid batteries but lithium and other valuable material s are quite difficult to recycle f ro m the used EV batteries. The current recycling rate for lithium coming out from the used lithium-ion batteries is around 50% but the best commercially viable methods are able to extract 80%. Some experimental methods do get up to 96% though. But I don’t know the ratios for the other material.

Merkin Muffley > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:39

Right. But that’s all quantified.

The Co2 alone from building a Battery will run a modern hybrid 200k miles.

Electrification is the future but putting 8000 batteries into a pack that weighs a ton is just idiotic.

Better solutions are coming but they won't weigh 50% more than 100 gram per mile hybrid. A Tesla is 250-600 grams per mile.

Merkin Muffley > DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By
08/12/2020 at 10:44

The offensive part is still the grotesque amount of CO2 in lithium battery production. A single Tesla pack has over 20 million grams of waste carbon emissions.

For the record, Jason is so biased it’s not even funny. He’s the one who drove 70 MPH across Wyoming in his Model 3 (ave speeds over 85) because it was a “fair test” .... What he was lying through omission on was that the efficiency of EVs drops dramatically at true freeway speeds. You end up much worse than my Benz at speed.

Everybody "wants" thew current crop of EVs to be better... But real world? Not so much.

DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s
08/12/2020 at 10:44

That was my di lemm a too but so far I have saved about $ 1K on go juice in the 10 months I’ve owned it coming from a 40 mpg fiesta . Plus, wayyyy less maintenance (hybrid would differ obviously), hil ariously quick off the line, car pool stickers and was cheaper than an equivalent used ICE car in the first place (paid ~$ 6 K for a 3 year old model with 32K on the clock) . Those perks are really tough to beat. I would still have something ICE for a fun weekend car, but it makes little sense to commute in one

Merkin Muffley > Future next gen S2000 owner
08/12/2020 at 10:44

It's the waste CO2 in the battery production not the mining...

Merkin Muffley > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI
08/12/2020 at 10:45

That's the real point--- where's the excitement for mass transit?

DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 10:54

How is he biased? He shows where his numbers come from and the dude still owns ICE cars, including a supercharged miata. The amount of CO2 produced from battery production is made up by the drastic reduction in CO2 from driving compared to ICE.

Yeah, range drops at highway speed, that shouldn’t surprise anyone as its right in the ratings. The reason to drive slower at highway speeds is to save time charging if your driving long distance . Instead of making up time on the road, you are saving time at the charging stations.

And your claim about nobody wanting EVs to be better is hilariously erroneous , checked telsa stock lately? Yeah, no one cares about EV’s at all!

And maybe check sales data?

Kinja'd!!!

Tripper > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 10:54

One other caveat that I’m ignorant too but seems problematic is WTF are we doing with those huge batteries when they’re spent? Electronics waste particularly batteries is/are a huge issue even without cars.

Most recently I called our township to find out about electronics waste disposal....I was greeted by a recording that says the township no longer offers electronics recycling and that I should write the senator about the lack of options...

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 10:58

Depends on what (or who) you’re doing on the bus.

I think it’s fair to say nobody “likes” taking a bus. It’s just not a nice experience.

DipodomysDeserti > jminer
08/12/2020 at 10:59

What you said about oil/gas companies is just as true for mining companies. Just in Arizona we’ve had water tables effectively permanently polluted by mining companies.

DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 11:05

Not to downplay this event or anything, but this isn’t a typical oil spill as this is a cargo ship, and what is leaking is the fuel that powers the ship. Naturally the amount of fuel on this boat is not anywhere near equivalent to the amount of oil a tanker would carry, so thankfully they may be able to mitigate the effects this one relatively well.

But even so this is another example of how bad our main source of fuel is for the environment. Whether its your car leaking gas or oil or the fact that Hundreds of barrels of oil per day are leaked into the gulf from damaged well heads .

Mining is obviously a destructive industry, and some of the resource exporting nations that export the materials needed to make batteries have so-so (or worse) human rights records. But at least batteries can be recycled and electric cars are “on the grid” which is more efficient than personal internal combustion engines.

I don’t think anyone reasonable will argue electric cars a perfect solution, but they are an improvement which is important, and the continued adoption of electric cars will hopefully fund further improvements down the line.

Tristan > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:05

Have you ever taken mass transit? I could get excited for it if you just eliminate all the other people and transform a 5.5 hour bus ride from my house to work into the 36 minutes it normally takes.

jminer > DipodomysDeserti
08/12/2020 at 11:06

Without a doubt, we have large swaths of waterways here in Missouri where you aren’t supposed to eat the fish out of the water from all the lead mining that’s taken place.

Mining is always one of my best arguments against Libertarians when they say private companies always do what’s best and government regulation gets in the way...

Merkin Muffley > DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By
08/12/2020 at 11:06

For those of us who live out here? Only a moron brags about “how capable” the cars are for cross country driving... then sets out on a cross-country drive at 20 mph under the prevailing speed. He did that for a reason

He concealed the rapid fall off in economy much like he failed to disclose losing TWO virtually unobtainable Tesla wheels somewhere out in Illinois. Which is the fly in the ointment on “range” nobody talks about... you always need s ome spare range because bad shit always happens out on the road when you least expect it.

That’s a nice “cumulative “ graph— hint from an Applied Math major: “those always go up and to the right”.

If you look at quarterly sales? In steady decline over the last 5 quarters. S down. X down. 3 down.

Jason runs a nice YT franchise. As for his actual engineering chops? Pretty thin. He regularly gets razzed over on the FP for his sloppy math.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:07

/coughs

Merkin Muffley > Tristan
08/12/2020 at 11:08

Lived for 5 years in London. So yeah I know mass transit.

We are just allergic to it here in the US and want to cling to the hope that ”driving around in our private 6000 pound space capsule” is sustainable. The Tesla thing is just the latest fantasy to come down the pipe.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 11:11

Nothing is perfect? That’s a bold claim.

Merkin Muffley > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI
08/12/2020 at 11:12

Lived for 5 years in London. So yeah I know mass transit. The Tube is far preferable to the hassles of driving in the city.

We just want to pretend that the other “stuff” isn’t a problem here in the US even as the streets are clogged. In LA? We recently proved that even if 100% of the cars were Tesla? Pollution would only go down 15%.

This is a much bigger problem than “just buy an EV”.

Merkin Muffley > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
08/12/2020 at 11:12

Was that for "mass transit" ?

DipodomysDeserti > jminer
08/12/2020 at 11:14

Yeah, just drove through the Navajo reservation yesterday. Thousands of abandoned uranium mines up there with tailing piles and ponds just left out in the open.

Although one could argue that government doesn’t give a shit about you unless you have money

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:17

But if the battery is recyclable, which is a technology that’s improving then it could tip.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > Tripper
08/12/2020 at 11:20

Battery recycling is improving but not great; obviously it’s a problem. I think my point of view is EVs are still pretty new with lots of places for improvement(cleaner grids, battery recycling, battery chemistry). We’ve been working on gas engines in cars for 100 or so years and efficiency doesn’t seem to have any leaps left to make...

Tristan > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:20

I’m allergic to Portland’s rolling homeless shelters and tacking 10 hours onto my commute, yes. See also: mass transit is losing money hand over fist and is completely unsustainable while gobbling up tax dollars, confined indoor spaces with strangers and COVID.

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:27

There is no ne because mass transit is an exercise in the exceedingly unpleasant.

If everyone would just stay home we wouldn’t need transportation at all.

DucST3-Red-1Liter-Standing-By > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:30

Yeah, the reason is to save time. How you drive a EV long distance is slower and save time at the charger, coming from a guy who commutes 60 miles/per in a 500e on the freeway

You make claims he’s bias and does poor math, but are showing any evidence? Claiming someone is biased who has a different view than you without showing evidence is Trumpism 101. Want to change my mind? Sure, I’m open to discussion, show me

nermal > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 11:38

I think it’s a NIMBY mindset. Who cares about all of the child slave labor used to make your car batteries and shoes and clothes and other material goods ? Or pollution in some poor shithole area of the world?

New Teslas are as much status symbols as they are transportation. They provide value to their customers, and they are honestly quite good at it. All of those unfortunate side effects that in the big picture make buying a new $100k EV worse for the environment than running a gas car for another 5 years? Meh.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 11:43

It’s less the level of concern, more the fact that so many people seem to look at EV’s like they’re completely pure and unsullied. And that’s just incorrect. Also, apart from the minin g, lithium was a rare enough element when the only consumer was cell phones—putting thousands of them into each car isn’t exactly going to help. And going backwards to nickel isn’t an option.

Myself, I’m not interested in EV’s (except for homebuilt conversions - those are often pretty damn cool ) until they’re powered by hydrogen instead of batteries. Until then, for an EV to grab my interest it needs to present something unique. Tesla DID that when it first came out, by being an electric car that didn’t rule out performance, but now everyone is on that train. The Rivian tank turn and GM’s “electric crate engine” that bolts up to existing bellhousings are kinda cool.

On another note, what I’d really love to see (and it won’t happen because efficiency) is a car powered by a full size version of this: https://www.enginediy.com/products/solenoid-engine-v8-electromagnetic-engine-electric-car-engine-model

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 11:46

Nowhere because an expensive waste of time

And also diseases

And also if you can take a bus somewhere, odds are you can ride a bike in the same amount of time and benefit from that

jminer > DipodomysDeserti
08/12/2020 at 12:10

That is very true a lot of the problem is that the government has for a very long time given these companies absolute freedom to do whatever they want damn the regulations.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 12:14

I think that’s been proven incorrect pretty decisively. the new Nissan and Mazda powerplants are substantially more efficient, you have lots of work coming on the compound-cycle front— and, as Toyota is proving, you have a path with hybrids to get below 50 grams per mile— all in. A Tesla Model X is at least 10X that CO2 on an all in basis.

CAFE standards and refinement are the best bridge to an electric future.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Tripper
08/12/2020 at 12:16

You always get “recycling” from the cultists, but not much of the LiION battery waste on the phone side is getting recycled.

It just seems like more empty promises-- the upfront carbon is clearly higher, the payback is in “millions” of miles, not “thousands”.

DipodomysDeserti > jminer
08/12/2020 at 12:16

I’m in favor of it being legal to cut the balls off the company CEO if they poison your air or water.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 12:18

Look, we ship a billion phones with these batteries into the world every year. Virtually none of those get recycled.

We ship 100M laptops and tablets a year. Same problem.

What’s different about these same batteries here?

At least 98% of an ICE car gets recycled. It’s a beautiful thing.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > DipodomysDeserti
08/12/2020 at 12:22

That mess south of Tucson never gets fixed. Ever. And that was just for the copper for the Tesla ... Meanwhile, in Africa?

Cobalt, it’s the future.

Kinja'd!!!

jminer > DipodomysDeserti
08/12/2020 at 12:22

I have no objections to that

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Tristan
08/12/2020 at 12:23

Well, it works in London. As for Portland, there’s bigger problems there.

Tripper > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 13:08

Yeah the guy who picked up our last batch was just like “its just a different landfill” Hoping he was joking

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > Merkin Muffley
08/12/2020 at 13:26

agree on all points.

The problem mass transit has, is that cars have a sex appeal to them that busses and trains will never have. It’s an image problem. We need to make mass transit cool if it’s ever going to take off in a meaningful way in places it’s currentl y lacking.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Tripper
08/12/2020 at 13:33

It’s doubly weird when you see how hard Tesla works to PREVENT recycled batteries from being re-used in other cars (which is the sweet part of the car parts recycling business).

It’s all hopes and dreams and unicorn farts so far. it’s actually scary to see how far out on a limb the sector will go financially for a concept that seems fatally flawed seven ways from Sunday.

BahamaTodd > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 13:37

What’s different is a uto companies are actively designing their batteries to be easily recyc led or repurposed. EV batteries are designed with very conservative operating cycles so they will easily outlive the vehicle and maintain value. Because of this, resale or trade-in value will be another major benefit of EVs.

Tristan > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 13:53

You’ve certainly got that right.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 14:00

I believe people make that case because of the whole “zero-em is sions” and lower carbon footprint deals . The average person is gullible enough to believe something like zero-emissions with regards to BEV because they don’t have to visit a gas station for fuel and they don’t see exhaust from a tailpipe. The simple fact being that just because the car doesn’t use gasoline or diesel as it’s power source , doesn’t mean it hasn’t and doesn’t hurt the environment. Not by a long shot.

At the end of the day you’re title is entirely correct: Nothing’s perfect with regards to producing and consuming energy. Every mass power source has an issue regarding our earths eco systems . Landscape changing hydro dams, deforesting to power bio power plants, service life and power density of solar and wind, nuclear hazards, and all the fossil fuel plants. It’s really akin to picking your poison and deciding which is less harmful , and people will argue about this forever until/if we find our proverbial dilithium crystal . I have never seen any report that accurately compares all manners of power production as it’s usually some sort of bias. To be frank, I’m not sure it’s possible because the world is different all over thus solutions are different.

It’s not so much to put down BEV as tapping into large scale power generation is more efficient, but the whole green movement is blowing it slightly out of proportion about how much better it is and I don’t believe the consequences of going majority BEV vehicle power have been explored enough.

BEV is good, but I think in the last decade it’s overshadowing downsizing which is another viable option to improve efficiency and reduce carbon footprint. I see shit like the future 1000bhp BEV Hummer and roll my eyes, BEV is not an excuse to produce something like that and call it “eco friendly”, you know they’ll try though. It’s the same issue I have with these hair-brained consumer moves like making everything AWD, CUV and small SUV instead of focusing on sleeker cars. I can’t really blame the manufactures for this because it’s this greater public perception that they want or need these things and it’s a supply to a demand.

I like seeing the new tech and alt power , and I report on it quite a bit with regards to vessels as I find it interesting . However while what we are producing is more efficient it’s currently is far from world saving. I see areas for vast improvements for personal vehicles that should be implemented today .

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > BahamaTodd
08/12/2020 at 14:07

Oh, it’s possible. At this moment I put it in the same bucket as “Coast to Coast Self-Drive in 2016", “Robotic Battery Swap 2017", “Robotic Snake Charging Cable 2015" and “Alien Dreadnought Tent 2018"

Over-Promise, Under-Deliver. That’s the sector’s motto.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 15:02

50 grams per mile? That seems not right.

Well, I guess maybe it’s more accurate to say thermal efficiency went from 20-35ish percent over a hundred years and now we’ve had some potential bigger improvements. Toyota was clamoring about breaking the 40% mark. Mazda’s estimates of 56% would indeed be impressive.

But your indications about 50 grams per mile are exactly the kinds of bias I think people demonstrate. You’re talking about the absolute best case future scenario for Toyota(which I still think seems wrong) and some sort of inflated number for the Tesla. Toyota’s car fleet grams of CO2 is around 200 Per mile and an electric vehicle running off the average grid in America is around 140 grams from some quick searching . We can improve the grid % of renewables and we can improve battery recycling to lower the up front impact.

On what basis is a Tesla Model X 500 grams per mile? I’m guessing you are including production, but you would need to do the same for the Toyota.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 15:11

Right. Prius “today” is approaching 120 raw, on gasoline, but there’s a clear roadmap to sub-50 on CNG with more and more ag gressive hybrids and continuing work on thermal efficiency of the ICE component. Since the next gen Toyota hybrids are also all PHEVs, you also get all the advantages of averaging down CO2 via daytime charging. It’s pretty easy to get to 50, assuming a fair portion of daytime (solar) charging, WITHOUT burdening the whole model with “500 mile range battery packs”. That part’s crazy.

News Flash: the carbon in a tiny NIMH Prius battery is a tiny fraction of the CO2 battery carbon in a 120 KW-hour Tesla battery. God only knows what an enviro-disaster the “cyber truck” will be with 250 KW-hours of dirty batteries.

Hybrids are the interim future and Toyota knows it. Not coincidentally, their most recent profits were still very robust— even as all the BEV fixated c ompanies reported huge operating losses.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 15:15

The difference between recycling a 2 thousand pound battery versus a 2 ounce battery? Return on invested time.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle
08/12/2020 at 15:16

Over-Promise, Under-Deliver.

Tripper > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 15:20

“ it’s actually scary to see how far out on a limb the sector will go financially for a concept that seems fatally flawed seven ways from Sunday.”

I feel the exact same way!!

Merkin Muffley > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI
08/12/2020 at 15:27

In London it’s accepted. The PM and Lord Mayor commonly take it.

And, yeah, over the term they will make car ownership more and more miserable

DipodomysDeserti > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/12/2020 at 15:34

The Sierrita Mine has been there for over a century. Very few of the mines in Arizona will ever get fixed. There are thousands of abandoned uranium mines in northern Arizona that will never get cleaned up.

Eat my farts, Fake Dr. Lizardo > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s
08/13/2020 at 03:07

Kinja'd!!!