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How environmentally friendly are electric cars?
Believe it or not, if you were walking down Manhattan in 1900, you would have seen an electric car. About a third of the cars on New York’s roads at the time were electric, and there were 30 of his electric vehicles (EVs) in taxis around the city. It was a short heyday.
It was Henry Ford’s Model T, first produced in 1908, that marked the beginning of the end of the electric car. Suddenly, gasoline cars were relatively affordable and were everywhere thanks to Ford’s pioneering use of production lines.
By the mid-1930s, electric vehicles had all but disappeared as roads improved and gasoline prices fell. I was.
Of course, EVs are a big part of the private transportation market today and are growing rapidly. EV sales have grown significantly in recent years, with EVs and hybrids accounting for more than 10% of total European car sales in 2020, increasing the political and economic will to move to EVs. I’m here.
At COP26, 24 countries and a group of manufacturers committed to phasing out fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2040. And 30 countries have agreed to work together to make zero-emission vehicles the new normal by making them accessible, affordable and sustainable in all regions. 2030 or earlier.
All of this is welcome, but the reality of EVs is complex, with everything from battery production to supply chains.
Dr. Sergey Paltsev is Associate Director of the MIT Joint Program on Global Change Science and Policy and an expert on EVs. He believes the biggest misconception about EVs is the idea that EVs are trying to decarbonize transportation.
Paltsev said:
“First, progress has been uneven across regions of the world. limited.”
Another issue is the power sources EVs use and how they are manufactured. “The concept of EVs as ‘zero-emission vehicles’ decarbonizes electricity production (used by EVs) and takes into account emissions (and other sustainability issues) during critical mineral extraction and battery production. It must be properly certified because there is a need.”
A 2020 UNCTAD report highlighted problems with battery production and the fact that the raw materials used to produce EV batteries are concentrated in a small number of countries.
For example, two-thirds of cobalt production (cobalt is required for the production of lithium batteries) takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
According to UNICEF, about 20% of the cobalt supplied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo comes from artisanal mines with reported human rights abuses, putting up to 40,000 children in extreme danger with little income. I work at Now he’s short of one problem. Cobalt supply is projected to exceed demand by 2030 at the latest.
In Chile, approximately 65% of the water in the country’s Atamaca Salt Lake region, one of the driest desert regions in the world, is used for lithium mining, pumping salt water from drilled wells.
This has forced local quinoa farmers and llama herders to migrate and abandon their ancestral settlements due to lack of water. .
“The dramatic growth of EVs makes diversifying our supply of essential minerals for batteries and electric motors very important,” says Paltsey. “In addition, lifecycle accounting of EV environmental impacts raises concerns about emissions from water, land, and mining and processing.”
It’s not just battery manufacturing that’s at stake. Battery disposal is also difficult. An EV battery is made up of thousands of components that keep the car running for hundreds of kilometers. The same components can release harmful toxins when EV batteries end up in landfills. Recycling is also an issue.
“Current EV batteries are not really intended for recycling,” said Dana Thompson, a researcher at the Faraday Institute, a UK research center focused on battery issues. science magazine last year.
Some countries have finally introduced recycling laws, but the different nature of EV batteries can make it difficult to set up an efficient recycling system. The glue used to make the battery means that old batteries are difficult to take apart. As a result, manufacturers find it cheaper to build new batteries from scratch than to recycle old materials.
Infrastructure can also be a challenge. Finding an EV charging station can be a problem depending on where you are in the world. Especially when compared to the ubiquitous nature of petrol stations, this shows how the transition from a world dependent on fossil fuels to one dominated by renewable energy is going. time consuming.
However, as the number of EVs on the road grows, so does the infrastructure. The International Energy Agency estimates that there will be 10 million EVs on the road by the end of 2020, and he predicts 25 million to 30 million by the end of this year.
“Future estimates are highly dependent on continued and increased government support and expected reductions in EV costs,” says Paltsev. “Our projections show that accelerated policy action could increase the number of EVs in the world by an order of magnitude in 2030, reaching around 200 million. It is estimated that over 1 billion EVs are on the road.”
However, despite this significant increase in the number of EVs, it is clear that EVs are not the silver bullet when it comes to sustainable transport.
“All possible transport-related decarbonisation, such as strengthening public transport, land-use planning that encourages compact development, and reducing the use of private electric transport by mode-switching to walking, cycling and public transport. We need to emphasize the support of options, ”Partsev said. Say.
This article was originally published on the United Nations Climate Change Portal.
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