Even if you are 100% convinced in man-made climate change, the idea the EV’s will help reduce CO2 emissions is nonsense.
The Impossible Dream
Hello climate change advocates, please open your minds and consider the Manhattan Institute report Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream by Mark P. Mills, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow.
A dozen U.S. states, from California to New York, have joined dozens of countries, from Ireland to Spain, with plans to ban the sale of new cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE), many prohibitions taking effect within a decade. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a feat of regulatory legerdemain, has proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively force automakers to shift to producing mainly electric vehicles (EVs) by 2032.
To ensure compliance with ICE prohibitions and soften the economic impacts, policymakers are deploying lavish subsidies for manufacturers and consumers. Enthusiasts claim that EVs already have achieved economic and operational parity, if not superiority, with automobiles and trucks fueled by petroleum, so the bans and subsidies merely accelerate what they believe is an inevitable transition.
It is certainly true that EVs are practical and appealing for many drivers. Even without subsidies or mandates, millions more will be purchased by consumers, if mainly by wealthy ones. But the facts reveal a fatal flaw in the core motives for the prohibitions and mandates.
Executive Summary Key Points
- No one knows how much, if at all, CO2 emissions will decline as EV use rises. Every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. The variables and uncertainties in emissions from energy-intensive mining and processing of minerals used to make EV batteries are a big wild card in the emissions calculus. Those emissions substantially offset reductions from avoiding gasoline and, as the demand for battery minerals explodes, the net reductions will shrink, may vanish, and could even lead to a net increase in emissions. Similar emissions uncertainties are associated with producing the power for EV charging stations.
- No one knows when or whether EVs will reach economic parity with the cars that most people drive. An EV’s higher price is dominated by the costs of the critical materials that are needed to build it and is thus dependent on guesses about the future of mining and minerals industries, which are mainly in foreign countries. The facts also show that, for the majority of drivers, there’s no visibility for when, if ever, EVs will reach parity in cost and fueling convenience, regardless of subsidies.
- Ultimately, if implemented, bans on conventionally powered vehicles will lead to draconian impediments to affordable and convenient driving and a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion automotive industry.
- Rarely has a government, at least the U.S. government, banned specific products or behaviors that are so widely used or undertaken. Indeed, there have been only two comparably far-reaching bans in U.S. history: the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the consumption of alcohol (repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment); and the 1974 law prohibiting driving faster than 55 mph. Neither achieved its goals; both were widely flouted, and the first one engendered unintended consequences, not least of which was criminal behavior.
EV Emissions: Unclear, and Maybe Unknowable
In contrast to cars with internal combustion engines, it’s impossible to measure an EV’s CO2 emissions. While, self-evidently, there are no emissions while driving an EV, emissions occur elsewhere—before the first mile is ever driven and when the vehicle is parked to refuel.
The CO2 emissions directly associated with EVs begin with all the upstream industrial processes needed to acquire materials and fabricate the battery. The received wisdom that EVs will have a “huge impact” on reducing emissions is, whether the claimants know it or not, anchored in assumptions about the quantities and varieties of materials mined, processed, and refined to make the battery.
The scale of those upstream emissions emerges from the fact that a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and replaces a fuel tank holding about 80 pounds of gasoline. That half-ton battery is made from a wide range of minerals, including copper, nickel, aluminum, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and, of course, lithium.
As researchers at the U.S. Argonne National Labs have pointed out, the relevant emissions data on such materials “remain meager to nonexistent, forcing researchers to resort to engineering calculations or approximations.” The fundamental fact to keep in mind: every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations.
The critical factor for estimating upstream EV emissions starts with knowing the energy used to access and fabricate battery materials, all of which are more energy-intensive (and more expensive) than the iron and steel that make up 85% of the weight of a conventional vehicle.[36] The energy used to produce a pound of copper, nickel, and aluminum, for example, is two to three times greater than steel. Estimates of the aggregate energy cost to fabricate an EV battery vary threefold but, for context, on average, the energy equivalent of about 300 gallons of oil is used to fabricate a quantity of batteries capable of storing the energy contained in a single gallon of gasoline.
That so much upstream energy is necessarily used is understandable if one knows that hundreds of thousands of pounds of rock and materials are mined, moved, and processed to create the intermediate and final refined minerals to fabricate a single thousand-pound battery.
While there are dozens of variations, a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and contains about 30 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of cobalt, 130 pounds of nickel, 190 pounds of graphite, 90 pounds of copper,[a] and about 400 pounds of steel, aluminum, and various plastic components.
Sources of “Hidden” Energy to Mine and Process 500,000 Pounds per EV Battery
- Lithium brines contain @ ~0.14% lithium, so that entails ~20,000 pounds of brines to yield 30 pounds of pure lithium.
- Cobalt @ ~0.1% ore grades means ~60,000 pounds of ore dug up per battery
- Nickel @ ~1.3% grade, means ~10,000 pounds of ore
- Graphite @ ~10% leads to 2,000 pounds of ore
- Copper @ ~0.6% yields about 12,000 pounds of ore
- These five elements total ~100,000 pounds of ore to fabricate one EV battery. To properly account for all the earth moved, there’s also the overburden, the materials first dug up to get to the ore; depending on ore type and location, it averages three to seven tons of overburden removed to access each ton of ore, thus ~500,000 pounds total.
- The energy used to obtain a pound of metal depends on the mineral ore grades, the size and nature of a mine, the distances that materials are transported, and the nature of the grids and fuels used at specific mines. For copper, that number can vary at least twofold and for nickel by threefold. Getting accurate information is complicated by the fact that 80%–90% of relevant minerals are mined outside the U.S. and EU.
Known Unknowns
Location and Other Known Unknows
Location: A battery plant in Norway, where dams provide about 90% of electricity, adds very little to upstream emissions from mineral processing and assembly, while a lot is added for the same plant in China, where coal supplies two-thirds of grid power. Notably, half the world’s EVs in 2022 were built in China, and China is rapidly entering global markets, selling EVs across the world.
Chemistry: There are about a dozen variations in lithium chemistry. While these entail different ratios and types of some minerals, the overall quantity of materials, and thus mining, needed per battery remains roughly the same. The exception is with lower energy-density chemistries. For example, the lithium-iron-phosphate (LPO) chemistry, popular in China and with some automakers because it doesn’t use cobalt or nickel, has a 20% lower energy density. That translates into either a 20% lower driving range or building a bigger, heavier battery requiring more copper, aluminum, polymers, and lithium.
Electronics: An EV uses about 200% more electronics for power management. Silicon device fabrication is extremely energy-intensive (about 100x more, pound-for-pound, than steel), but, as one analysis put it, energy-use “data for electronics production still needs to become better.” The data available suggest that the uncounted CO2 emissions embodied in each EV’s power electronics roughly equal those from driving an ICE car 3,000 miles.
Life Span: Most analysts assume that a battery pack will last the EV’s lifetime, but life spans depend on how consumers charge the battery—fast or overnight. As one study put it, using “intensive,” i.e., on-road fast charging, rather than “light” overnight charging, typically cuts a battery’s life in half. Modeling the emissions from an EV fleet requires estimating what share of owners will need two batteries per car life span.
Fuel Efficiency: When EV emissions are presented as a percentage reduction over an ICE car, one assumes a fuel mileage for the latter. But realistic forecasts would incorporate future trends in combustion engine efficiency. An analysis of engine technology progress finds 30%–50% fuel efficiency gains will be on offer by 2030 and thus an equal reduction in CO2 emissions per mile. Using the performance of a future ICE for comparison with a future EV further closes any gap in estimated emissions savings
Recycling: Recycling will be irrelevant for a long time, as far as mitigating upstream minerals demands. Since manufacturers claim that EV batteries will last a decade, that means that there won’t be much of anything available to begin recycling until the early 2030s. The best that IEA could come up with is recycled minerals meeting 1%–2% of battery demand by 2030.[70] As for the following decades, enthusiasts’ unrealistic dream of perfect recycling, even were it feasible, would still leave the need for an astronomical rise in overall minerals supplied.
Alleged Breakthroughs: News stories serially claim a “breakthrough” in battery technology, but there are no commercially viable alternative battery chemistries that significantly change the magnitude of the physical materials needed. To meaningfully reduce primary mineral demands would require a nearly 10-fold leap in underlying electrochemistry efficiency. Such gains aren’t even theoretically feasible. Many processes are already operating near physics limits.
Heavy Duty Use: Batteries for most heavy equipment are not up to 24×7 performance and industrial-class demands—never mind costs. And as IEA has also pointed out, over half the electricity used in industry is not grid-connected but produced on-site, and much of it with diesel-fueled generators, especially at remote and small mines.
Temperature: EV mileage is about 30% worse when it’s 20oF outside, versus 80oF, because battery electrochemical reactions are unavoidably slow at lower temperatures.[91] There’s only a 5% drop in fuel efficiency for ICE cars over the same temperature range. On top of that, as road testers and consumers know, using an EV’s heater in winter can lower kWh mileage by as much as 50%.[92] (An ICE car scavenges free waste heat.) Such temperature factors are generally ignored, not only on EV “sticker” ratings but especially so in estimating national emissions impacts from EVs. Those factors matter, since one-third of the U.S. population lives in cold northern latitudes.
Moore’s Law and the Comic Book View
Only in comic books does energy tech advance at the pace of information tech, such as in Moore’s Law.
Similarly central to the inevitability and cheaper-better claims is the assertion that EVs are inherently simpler machines and that the “old” ICE technology is maxed out, with no innovation remaining.
The reality is otherwise. Yes, conventional cars do have a complex thermo-mechanical system, with the engine and automatic transmission made from hundreds of components, mated with a very simple fuel system, a tank holding a liquid with a one-moving-part pump. EVs, inversely, have a very simple motor made from just a few parts. However, the EV fuel tank is a complex electrochemical system made from hundreds of parts, sometimes thousands, including a cooling system, sensors, and control electronics. In addition, the EV drivetrain requires roughly double the quantity of microcontrollers and power electronics.
Greater advances are still possible with ICE tech than are with electric motors or batteries. In terms of overall mineral resource requirements, a 1% improvement in combustion efficiency equals a 10% advance in battery-electric tech.
Projection vs Needs
Where Are the Minerals?
The overwhelming majority of minerals supply is located outside the U.S. and EU.“None of the raw materials required for battery-cell manufacturing are currently mined in significant quantities in Europe,” a recent German government study noted.
For energy minerals, China has double the market share that OPEC has with oil. China is busily expanding mining investments in Africa and South America and is on track to raise its share of the refined lithium market from 24% last year to 32% within two years. Other countries are following Indonesia’s new policy (the world’s top nickel producer), wherein exports of raw mineral ore are prohibited, requiring the construction of local refineries. Meanwhile, in South America, where two-thirds of the world’s low-cost lithium resources are known (and one-third of current production), there’s talk of a Lithium cartel. The effect on prices of such market concentrations are well known. Strategies to form “buyers’ clubs” among nations, recently proposed by the U.S. government in collaboration with the EU, run up against their historical failure. Monopolies, cartels, or dominant sellers invariably have more price control.
Even if the energy-minerals market were to be uniquely free of price manipulation, the basic economics of supply and demand points to dramatic price increases for batteries—as well as other products dependent on these minerals. For many minerals, EV demand is transitioning from a marginal share to the dominant use. Competition for these minerals’ supply, and inevitably price pressures, will begin to have an impact on the cost of building everything from homes and buildings to appliances and computers. Five years ago, EV markets constituted, for example, 15%, 10%, and 2% of all uses for lithium, cobalt, and nickel, respectively; last year, those shares were 60%, 30%, and 10% and rising rapidly.
Refueling Infrastructure
So far, 90% of EVs in the U.S. have been purchased as a second or third car by wealthy households with a garage. While only one-third of American households have a garage, the fueling infrastructure challenges begin in those neighborhoods for an all-EV world. If all garage owners use home chargers, it will necessitate massive upgrades to residential electric networks. Otherwise, as one study showed, “more than 95 percent of residential transformers would be overloaded,” meaning that they fail or can blow up.
“Fast” charging is still far slower than the five to 10 minutes typical for gasoline fueling. Thus, to achieve the same convenience (avoiding waits in lines, etc.), a filling station will require about four chargers to replace each gasoline pump. Quite aside from the land-use implications, this translates into at least a doubling of the overall cost to build the average filling station (counting land, buildings, and other infrastructures as well).
In addition, installing two dozen or more superchargers at a filling station creates a grid power demand comparable to a small town or a steel mill instead of a convenience-store demand level of today’s filling stations. At the same time, the higher power levels from EV chargers will radically decrease the life span of the existing power transformers on utility poles, coming at a time when costs for new transformers have inflated about fivefold.
In Europe, where there’s more experience with on-road fast charging, the cost of a fast-charge fill-up is already higher than diesel for the same distances driven. In the U.S., Consumer Reports notes that the cost to fill up with a Tesla supercharger is over triple the (usually assumed) cost of at-home overnight charging.
Refueling Math
As for a “big reset” for EV infrastructure based on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s $7.5 billion in subsidies to fund “thousands” of on-road chargers: consider the math. The all-EV future will need to replace most, if not all, of America’s roughly 1 million gasoline pumps located at the existing 145,000 filling stations.
The calculus of overall societal costs for an all-EV future also requires including the dramatic expansion of power generation and long-distance transmission. Replacing all the gasoline used in America with electricity would require at least 50% more electricity generation than exists or is planned, along with an even greater increase in electric power distribution. Such power-plant and grid requirements represent multitrillion-dollar levels of spending.
An analysis from the Boston Consulting Group puts the utility grid improvement costs—never mind power generation—at $1,700–$5,800 per EV put on the market. Do the math: that’s $400 billion to over $1 trillion for an all-EV American car fleet. While those costs would be divorced from car prices, it would constitute “sticker shock” for household electricity or tax bills.
Conclusion: There’s No Such Thing as a Carbon-Free Lunch
Imagining a hypothetical all-EV world requires acknowledging the unavoidable fact of a rats’ nest of assumptions, guesses, and ambiguities regarding emissions. Much of the necessary data may never be collectible in any normal regulatory fashion, given the technical uncertainties and the variety and opacity of geographic factors, as well as the proprietary nature of many of the processes. Those uncertainties could lead to havoc if U.S. and European regulators enshrine “green disclosures” in legally binding ways, and it all will be subject to manipulation, if not fraud.
If implemented, ICE bans will lead to a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion personal mobility industry. It will also lead to draconian constraints on freedoms and unprecedented impediments to affordable and convenient driving. And it will have little to no impact on global CO2 emissions. In fact, the bans and EV mandates are more likely to cause a net increase in emissions.
Mish Comments
The report by Mark P. Mills is complete with over 200 footnote citations and 14 charts of which I only discussed a few.
Mills presents an excellent starting point for understanding why the Biden push for EVs and especially Biden’s timeline cannot and will not happen. More importantly, it’s not even the right goal.
Also, Biden envisions production of EVs and minerals in the US while his Green administration is hell bent on blocking every mine for environmental reasons.
The ridiculously-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allocates $7.5 billion for infrastructure when a trillion dollars may be insufficient. This does not include the massive underinvest in mines, mostly powered by diesel or coal, and largely controlled by China.
Solid State Batteries and the Kiss of Death for Gas Powered Cars, Hype or Reality?
Regarding alleged battery breakthroughs, please consider Solid State Batteries and the Kiss of Death for Gas Powered Cars, Hype or Reality?
Numerous articles cite an alleged breakthrough by Toyota that will be the kiss of death for the gasoline engine. Some of us are skeptical.
Please note that Toyota is so convinced of its solid state technology that it continuing research in hybrids, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, regular batteries, and semi-solid state batteries.
Mills stated To meaningfully reduce primary mineral demands would require a nearly 10-fold leap in underlying electrochemistry efficiency. Such gains aren’t even theoretically feasible. Many processes are already operating near physics limits.
Ford to Layoff at Least 1,000 Workers, EV Startup Lordstown Motors Dies
We have hype over batteries, production, and goals that are not remotely possible.
Meanwhile, Ford to Layoff at Least 1,000 Workers, EV Startup Lordstown Motors Dies
EV Irony of the Day
Biden and the EPA have conspired to force companies to produce more EVs, but they cannot force anyone to buy them.
Please ponder the EV Irony, Despite Huge Incentives, Supply of EVs on Dealer Lots Soars to 92 Days
Hello car manufacturers, what are you going to do with all that inventory?
By the way, According to Florida’s Department of Emergency Management (DEM), nearly 6.8 million Floridians evacuated their homes in the lead up to Hurricane Irma, “beating 2005’s Houston-area Hurricane Rita exit by millions.”
Everyone will get 300 miles then their cars will all die.
Best article on EVs I’ve read in a while. Interestingly, as an Engineer, I did my own calculations and appreciate how this article addresses issues that most EV advocates won’t even consider, that is a brand new electrical grid and massive generation increase. I calculated a need of almost double the existing capacity and the article mentions 50% increase. Either way it is massive. The other calculation that typically isn’t mentioned in EV circles is that the estimated range will downgrade considerably as time moves forward. Even now, battery replacement is problematic as new battery tech along with layouts are causing a real issue in getting replacement ones. Finally, it is estimated that to mine the materials needed JUST FOR THE BATTERY is in the neighborhood of 50,000 miles of equivalent ICE driving. That doesn’t include the ecological disaster we are advocating in the name of reducing CO2 mining all these minerals, done of course outside the US with no environmental controls.
Thanks very much for your comments. Highly appreciated.
Mish
Agreed! Excellent reporting, Mish!
“The average American was responsible for 11,444 pounds of carbon emission last year, which makes for a whopping 890,000 pounds during a normal lifespan if emissions were to remain steady.”
Eight billion people. If we just . . .. No need for cattle and methane from same.
Unfortunately, some would consider the best way to protect human species from dangers of climate change would be to eliminate the human species.
My wife drives a Tesla, typically maximum 50 miles per day. She plugs into our 110 Volt outlet receptacle with a charge rate of 5 miles/hr. Assuming it is plugged in at least 14 hours/day, this is “re-fueling on average 70 miles per day. The only time we need faster charging rates from a Supercharger is when taking on longer trips, so this is only about 4 times per year. The article is not accurate in assumption that everyone will need supercharging capability so often. Most households will not need to add a 220 Volt charger to their home.
Real world data shows batteries do not lose much range over their lifetime and almost never need replacement outside of an accident. There’s a reason they typically come with a 8 year/100,000+ mile warranty. The batteries in an EV will last a lot longer than an engine in an ICE car on average.
Did your calculation take into account the continually lower costs of solar installations? Many will install solar panels on their roofs to help offset the load on the grid. And what about energy providers installing smart meters where the costs can vary with time of day. Encouraging people to charge overnight when overall demand is lower
There are several independent studies that estimate the greenhouse gas break even on EVs to be roughly 20,000 miles. The ones not funded by the oil and gas industry.
Unless you post your calculations, they’re garbage.
You won’t be charging anything with solar power at night.
Or their PV array generates electricity that is sent to their EV that is plugged in at work?? Thirty miles or less is the average commute. That is less than 8 kw hours and can easily be generated by a solar array. In january, I average about 10 kwh/day at a minimum.
We are at the beginning of transitioning to solar/wind and EVs. A lot is being developed.
Yes, actually you can charge with solar at night, from grid scale batteries that were charged during the day. Also, peak time of use is when you’ll make the most money exporting done if your EV’s massive energy storage capacity back to the grid.
Mish is a slight bit of a Luddite on this issue. Just the lead says a lot – “Even if you are 100% convinced in man-made climate change” …. The relationship between CO2 emissions and global temps was established about 120 years ago. There’s only a small but extremely vocal segment of the population that still argues about this.
We’re still in the EV infancy stage. Personally, I think they make great commuter/second cars.
On third EV -p Agreed, great commute/2nd car – not ready for prime time for long trips.
On 120 years of climate science proving correlation between increased CO2 and temperature increase – what is optimum temperature of planet and from whose perspective? Humans, animals, complete biosphere?
If earth had a thermostat we could control, would average temperature of planet be today’s temperature, 1970s which were abnormally cold, little ice age of revolutionary war era?
Over 4.5 billion years earth has existed, the climate has only been suitable for life a short period of time and will, in good time, no longer be suitable for life in future.
Certainly do not want to speed up process.
Not only do they make great commuter/second cars, but they are unmatched for in-your-face virtue signaling.
I know I’m rare but I’ve installed enough solar at work to charge my car and I’ve told all of my employees that I’d install more if they bought an EV so they could charge for free. I also have solar at home with a battery. I don’t do this for the environment because I’m 95% certain climate change is natural. I do this because I’m fighting government control. I’d rather have my employees be in a better financial place while I pay less in taxes.
James and Adele Noetzelman, KidHorn is correct that batteries are not degrading like they do in our phones. I’ve done a lot of engineering research to know to keep my battery between 20-70% at all times. It’s estimated my battery will only lose 20% capacity over 20 years. My 2010 F250 is in the shop getting a new transmission and I just got a new engine at just over 100,000 miles a couple of years ago.
EVs are not for everyone. They work incredible for daily drivers who drive less than 150 miles/day.
I’m keeping my F250 because there is no EV that meets my needs to be able to replace it.
As far as the stress to the grid, I think we are far better now than before. Tesla Megapacks are everywhere now. The new laws signed in place almost force you to buy a battery to make sense of solar.
I expect solar invertors will get smarter to the point to keep electricity DC and only charge at a rate that’s less than what’s being generated.
So there will be zero loss from DC to AC to DC or back and forth to and from the grid.
We have had ICE autos for over 200 years. We have seen peak innovation and won’t see much more efficiency from that form. EVs just started. If climate change is caused by humans and our government believes this over the lobbyists, then they will be creating gen4 nuclear and offer free electricity to all gas stations to profit off of charging.
“So there will be zero loss from DC to AC to DC or back and forth to and from the grid.”
It is apparent that you have no engineering or physics education.
There is NOTHING that is lossless. Cryogenic temperature superconductors can come close but are still lossy. Please go read up on entropy and thermodynamics before you post further anecdotes.
Thank you very much. I am not a professional. I simply have innate distrust for anything the government tries to force down my throat.
The blog challenges the efficacy of electric vehicles (EVs) in reducing CO2 emissions, citing a Manhattan Institute report. While acknowledging the practicality of EVs, it questions the motives behind bans and subsidies, suggesting a fatal flaw in the transition. Despite valid concerns, it’s essential to recognize EV advancements for a greener future. The inclusion of dormitxelectric.com for EV Charger Rebate introduces a practical solution to incentivize EV adoption, fostering accessibility. The discourse on EVs reflects a nuanced exploration of technology, economics, and environmental policy, crucial for steering towards a sustainable automotive future.
There is an 800 lb gorilla in plain sight that everyone is ignoring.
They energy grid is about 30% efficient. What this means is that for every kW you burn 3 are generated as 2 are lost in transmission. So right off the bat EVs are only 30% efficient.
Now consider that typical power plant efficiency ranges from 30 to 50%.
Let’s do the math: .3 x .4 = .12
So the real world fuel efficiency of electric vehicles is 12%. This is considerably less than the efficiency of internal combusiton engines.
The most efficient vehicles are hybrids that use a small internal combustion engine in combination with a battery and rolling charging systems.
The idea that EVs are going to solve energy and environmental crises is a mask for the mandated consumption of industrial products and the profits they generate.
I think you are not making the right comparison.
Here’s a burb on efficiencies of gas vs electric cars.
link to energycentral.com.
link to motortrend.com
Lets start with gas tank to combustion engine and other losses about 20% efficient.
Batteries to electric motor and other losses about 89% efficient.
Oil has about a 25% inefficency in preparation and transporting to the gas station
ELectricity when we reach 100% RE will have about 5 losses through the power lines.
Gas just doesn’t cut it. Gas only wins in cases where electricity is high and gas is low. That is not the case where I live. I have at least a 4 to 1 cost advantage over my wifes smaller less powerful car than mine.
FFs are destined to lose. Its just a matter of time.
Crazy. They haven’t worked out how to recycle the batteries yet. The weight of batteries required to drive a truck, bus, coach outweighs (pun intended) any efficiencies.
Recycling of EV batteries is getting started. Not stated in the article here is that the batteries are pulled out of expired vehicles since they are still quite viable and useful. There is a program called second life just for those kinds of batteries.
This article is full of typical O&G industry spin and misinformation. EV’s, and especially bidirectional EV’s are the solution that will help electrify and decarbonize the built environment, transportation, and energy sectors simultaneously and rapidly. Bidirectional EVs and chargers will provide massive distributed energy storage reserves that can absorb all the renewable energy we can generate, and export it to your home and the grid at peak times of energy use in the evenings and mornings. Charging between midnight and 7 am uses excess energy on the grid and provides morning peak energy. This solution is a “Silver bullet ” for decarbonization, to address climate change.
If you are looking for reckless hype coupled with inflation, then Sarterfish is who to follow.
There is an excellent scientific geological study from Aug 2021 that does not get enough attention. It destroys the narrative in great detail. For example, for one generation of EVs, solar and wind, we need 189 years of copper production, 400 years of nickel production, 9,920 years of lithium production…
Here are links to the report and the author’s presentations:
“Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels”
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf
Presentations: link to simonmichaux.com
As the authors of The Earth Brokers wrote about in 1994 – it’s a grift.
Distilled has an article showing fossil fuels have 535 times more mining than green energy materials. Green energy materials is 7 million tons a year now and will be 28 million tons a year in 2040. FF is 15 billion tons a year now.
In 2017 I routinely read blog posts from you about autonomous vehicles and how soon they would become mainstream (by 2023, if I’m not mistaken). Perhaps you’d like to blog on this topic again, revisit old predictions, and discuss the current state and expected future.
Sure
“If implemented, ICE bans will lead to a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion personal mobility industry.”
I don’t disagree with any of the claims that the emissions of EVs are guesswork. It’s true.
What I do disagree with is with the notion that somebody can happily state what is or isn’t a massive misallocation of capital without providing any data at all, except data that something is doubtful. The implication being that somehow, using the all-powerful, all-magical invisible hand of Adam Smith, the private sector can judge better a doubtful proposition than the government. On the grounds of the non-existence of the government statistics department, presumably. Which very much exists, by the way.
Let’s begin by recognising that there are two kinds of people: People who have access to both data and the ability to make big consequential decisions about that data, namely powerful people in government and corporations, and people who are data-poor and decision-limited, namely, the average person. Asking the average person whether “government team” or “corporations team” are best able to make decisions is like asking a blind man about colors. The best the average person could do is what some did in Jan 6 2020, which amounted to asking: “Why the hell are you even asking me?”
Deciding whether something is a misallocation of capital has to go into the question of what you are calling capital. Are you thinking of “capital” as in “money”? How do you know that the thing you call “money”, whatever investments you have, are actual money or just imaginary figures that are going to vanish the moment you try to pay for something with it? If you are thinking of “capital” as in actual industrial capability deployed to make batteries, etc., I salute you, and I presume you know something about the battery and/or the automaker business. Please go ahead and use your money or any other knowledge you have to make wise decisions. You are way ahead of all the fools that think that just because they have something that looks like “money” they know what to do with it. It takes some engineering knowledge to know what to do with “money”.
EVs are better for the climate even if the utility is burning coal. Once we are in clean energy, it will be all clean energy creating everything or just extremely small amount compared to today.
Please actually provide some numbers to support your posts.
How much money will it cost for the US to have 30%, 40% or 80% of its energy supplied by wind and solar.
The numbers have to actual numbers not some fancy, undocumented fantasy math with real costs.
More important than what 100% renewabel energy costs, is what it costs if we don’t. There is no planet B.
link to blog.ucsusa.org
Electricity power plant emissions data for 2019 was released earlier this year and I combined that data with the latest assessments of fuel emissions and vehicle efficiency. Based on where EVs have been sold to date, the average EV driving in the US produces global warming pollution equal to a gasoline vehicle that gets 93 miles per gallon (mpg) fuel economy. That’s significantly better than the most efficient gasoline car (59 mpg) and far cleaner than the average new gasoline car (31 mpg) or truck (23 mpg) sold in the US. And our estimate for EV emissions is about 15 percent lower than our estimate from just three years ago. Now 97 percent of people in the US live where driving an EV produces fewer emissions than using a 50 mpg gasoline car.
If anything is going to get ordinary folk manning (or whatever the woke term should be) the barricades, substitute ‘eat cake’ with ‘drive EVs’. Riots??? US – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
So here’s the answer – hydrogen powered internal combustion engine vehicles (HICEVs): Toyota; Hyundai; Cummins; Deutz; JCB. No more expensive than gasoline ICEVs; buoyant second hand market; whole of life recycling. And, most importantly – iron/steel/aluminium-based! No ‘copper crunches’; no ‘critical mineral crunches’.
All that’s needed is a hydrogen economy and there’s only one way of doing that – with nuclear enabled hydrogen (NEH) manufactured by small modular reactors (SMRs).
Note: SMRs generate pollution-free electricity and heat to manufacture NEH and they are also iron/steel/concrete-based with no mineral restrictions.
link to energycentral.com
Nuclear does seem a much better option than coal, oil and gas. But surely collecting and saving free energy from the sun and wind is an even better option. Storage technologies are advancing very rapidly, as ar e recycling techs for solar panels and wind turbines.
The future we are being driven [sic] to is obvious:
Personal driving will be akin to yachts and private jets today.
These will be excluded from regulations & controls, as in the EU energy taxonomy.
Only collective transit will exist, but at exorbitant prices.
CO² goals ultimately mean just not driving and freezing in the cold.
In the Netherlands, where many people and concerns have been switching from natural gas to electricity (and EVs, helped by government subsidies and other incentives), the economy is now in an iron vise. Reasons are:
[1] In more than half the country you cannot get a connection to the grid. Firms cannot expand; neighborhoods cannot finish projects with heat pumps.
(The grid here has always been one of the most reliable in the world.)
[2] Judicial activism with regards to ammonia and NOx has put a halt on construction, new roadways, neighborhoods, expanding firms, etc.
The net result is that despite the fact that economic growth has been one of the most vigorous in the EU, expanding your activity means exporting (part of) your production elsewhere, where there is (cheap) energy.
One thing you missed about EVs.
As we look towards the future and the increasingly widespread adoption of EVs, it’s important to consider the substantial strain this transition could place on our interstate road system. The introduction and growth of EVs, especially heavier models like the Ford Lightning, Rivian R1T, and the GMC Hummer EV truck, present an overlooked issue that could have significant consequences for our infrastructure.
For one, these larger EVs, propelled by weighty batteries, weigh between two and three times more than standard compact cars. Studies show that the average EV exerts 2.24 times more stress on roads compared to a similar gas vehicle and 1.95 times more stress than a diesel vehicle. This extra strain is particularly pronounced for larger EVs, which can cause up to 2.32 times more damage to road infrastructure compared to their non-electric counterparts.
The significant weight increase leads to accelerated road wear and tear, reducing the lifespan of our roads. Roads and bridges are designed for a specific lifespan, typically 20 years for roads and 30-50 years for bridges. However, the stress caused by EVs can cause them to degrade faster, leading to more frequent and costly repairs.
The heavier weight of EVs could exacerbate existing problems such as potholes and aging bridges. The increased asphalt movement resulting from the extra weight causes small cracks that can grow into larger, problematic issues. This could lead to a potentially crippling financial burden.
While the shift towards EVs may seem like a positive step in terms of environmental sustainability, it’s important to take a comprehensive look at the impact of this transition. Road planners and policymakers need to reassess existing standards and make provisions for the strain battery-electric vehicles place on the road infrastructure. If this factor is overlooked, the widespread adoption of EVs could lead to an increase in road degradation and maintenance costs, disrupting the transportation system and causing significant unforeseen expenses.
Thanks!
That ‘s an excellent set of comments that I have not seen elsewhere.
Source?
A lot of people pointlessly drive large pickups in urban areas. We already see the effect of overweight vehicles (relative to small ICE) on our roads.
Why do the gloBull warming zealots never mention that CO2 is essential to our survival and only 0.04% of the atmosphere?
It’s an even bigger hoax than coronadoom and Jan 6th, and only meant to be a propaganda sledgehammer to force compliance to the Great Reset, and provide justification to go to war with Russia and China, who will never go along with such One-World-Govt nonsense.
If reduced pollution is the real goal, then embrace technology and prosperity goals, or better yet, force the Shadow Govt to reveal all of the advanced technology they’ve been hiding for almost 100 years, including anti-gravity free energy systems – link to youtube.com.
The percentage means nothing. Trace gases like HFC’s have an outsize impact.
It’s the same as water (poor conductor) and adding just a little salt (electrocution).
The effect of a gas on infra-red reradiation depends on the spectrum in which it absorbs and whether that spectrum is already (partially) filled by another gas. The effect increases by 100% for every doubling (like water resistance: 4× the speed requires 16× the power). The amount of CO² is therefore has little to do with its effect. A doubling from a far lower level would have the same incremental effect.
“According to David Archibald, a Perth-based climate scientist, the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on world temperatures is minuscule, and what has caused the slight warming of the temperature in the last decade of the 20th century was the sun.”
link to zerohedge.com
Sun spot levels, ignored by the climate zealots, have rolled over and are declining rapidly, which will produce a cooling cycle that rivals the mini iceage, and could surpass it with the meddling of Gates-funded atmospheric manipulation. Normally, it’s volcanic activity, which rises with cooling cycles, that exacerbates the cooling. Now, the atmospheric manipulators can say their actions worked, except they will kill millions through starvation, which is also the goal of eugenicists like Gates.
You can find a few “scientists” that say smoking is good for you, the earth is flat, and sunspots (solar activity) are responsible for global warming and will soon start an ice age.
You can also find some people who are stupid enough to believe these “scientists”.
Got to remember it was .028% co2 of the atmosphere that gave us the Holocene. Now more co2 takes us into the anthropocene.
No.
We have just entered the Hubrisocene.
Should we assume that the amount of coal China uses today will remain the same in 10 or 20 years
It could be more. But what we are very confident of, it will be higher until 2030.
China has plans to go full renewables. Eventually the coal will go.
People talking about maitanance cost of Ice vehicles but the Ice vehicles I have owned cost very little .
With oil changes every 10k filters and( tires battery) same as electric . Most Ice vehicles will go 200 k with minimal maintence. I am not talking about Mercedes , BMW more of middle of the road Hondas ,Toyotas type . I doubt EV type people will keep their car 20 years so reallizing these savings from fuel will probaly never be reallized if ever. Anyway the difference in final cost and co2 emissions is probably very small .
There are no oil changes on an EV. No pollution equipment to pay for or maintain. After awhile EVs will be built to back up your home in a power outage.
Just the facts .Bought Honda Ridgeline for 28k in 2007 it had 17k on it that is 16 years ago . have spent 7 k in maintencae over the years that is 35 k includes tires
it has 150 k miles . Figure 20 k in gas over the 16 years equalls total cost of 55 k over 16 years . that comes out to about 300 dollars a month for me to own my personal vehicle over that period show show me the electric truck that will beat those numbers .It comes down to preverence small electric vehicles makes since with 200 mile range but there are a lot of people who want there suvs ,big trucks and so on and they are not the best choice for those people.
If you’ve never had to replace an alternator, generator, fuel pump, needed transmission or fuel injection work, or had to replace any belts, you’ve been very fortunate. You forgot to mention spark plugs and emission tests.
Most ICE cars come with a 3 year/36k warranty. Most EVs come with a 8 year/100k warranty for motor and battery. Did you know rental car companies are increasingly switching to EV. They typically sell ICE cars at about 30k miles or just prior to 3 years because that’s when maintenance costs start to weigh too much against the value of the vehicle. They hold EVs a lot longer because of the longer warranty and they don’t degrade nearly as much. An EV with 50k miles is like new. Not so for an ICE car.
Sure a little but most of those are not terribly expensive . My point is most ice vehicles go 8 years and 100 k with very little needed maintance and please an
oil change is 25 dollars so that is 250 dollars over 100 k miles if you change the
oil yourself . Funny EV drivers i know went from BMW and Audi expensive cars to
Teslas they are the Virtual signalers in spades. If you don’t know how to do maintance and drive it to the german dealer for all your wiper blades changes
and tire rotations then the EV definetly works for you . If you buy a slightly used
civic and you know anything and can do the simple maintance yourself the EV will never make up the cost difference
You value your time at zero?
For me to change my own oil would cost, at a minimum a couple hundred bucks. Because my time isn’t free.
Wow ,time = zero what math is that ? Synthetic oil change cost 80 dollars
I can do it for $25 and rotate tires 1 hour of time that is my hour work being worth nearly 75 dollars if you include the tire rotation and that would be pre tax so the same as earning about 100 bucks an hour before taxes . Yea i will work for 100 dollars a hour and the funny part is I can do it faster than if I took it to someone else if you figure when I left and got back . No time differece and probaly faster by doing it myself .
Your argument basically boils down to you can service an ICE car yourself and save money doing things you would never have to do on an EV. EV is still better.
And Tesla’s don’t cost more than similar ICE cars.
Yea see Chevy volt
The above arguments are brought to you by the oil and gas industry. Almost everything in this article has been refuted many times.
Operating mines currently have an average grade of 0.53% while copper projects under development have an average grade of 0.39%.
The estimated total resource of copper projects in the pipeline are 106B tonnes, half the current resource total of existing mines.
“Miners are struggling with both lower grades and increasing operating costs,” says Leinart.
“Lower grades mean moving more rocks which in turn will require more diesel fuel and explosives, making the metal more expensive to produce.”
link to mining.com
Mines today typically require a 15 year timeline from discovery to startup, and that is very generous! To get enough finished raw materials just for EV’s would take decades at ever-increasing capital/operating costs. That is provided that enough metals have actually been discovered now!! This issue alone makes the EV issue problematic. I won’t even mention the material recycle component that would be mandatory for adequate metal needs in the future.
The US electric grid is fast approaching being overburdened to the point of collapse. this will happen long before full replacement of internal combustion engines with EV’s. I recommend Robert Bryce’s substack blog for details.
Therre is plenty of room on the grid to charge at night. If transmission construction is accelerated, our energy needs can be met easier.
Then the logical solution would be to build more infrastructure to handle the load.
Correct. Using materials that must be mined. The increased load on our ageing grids is something that is seldom discussed but a very real problem.
Another poster correctly stated that the amount of copper needed will be greater than the amount that has been mined in all of history. It appears that we will reach peak copper in the next few years so this remains an issue.
I would like to switch to an EV however they still do not have the range required for the distances I need to drive. If one lives in a mountainous area as I do the range is typically cut in half, never mind driving in severe winter conditions.
If the real motivation is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions then the focus should be on improving mass transit. As was previously pointed out here this would have to be subsidized and operate at a net loss, hence the push for EV which instead is profitable.
Population reduction is the key to a sustainable future. Malthus was right! Fortunately birth rates in developed countries are below replacement rates. It’s the 3rd world that is the problem. There is were efforts should be focused. Also stopping mass 3rd world migration would help.
Population growth is part of the problem but its actually a very small part. The elephant in the room is economic growth which leads to increased standards of living, which results in demand for ever more energy and other resources.
The third world is not the problem. Its the developed world that is the problem. We consume enormous quantities of energy and resources in our quest of more economic growth and higher standards of living; hundreds or thousands of times per capita, compared to the third world.
Of course, those in the third world desperately desire to have a better standard of living as well; reliable electricity, adequate food and clean water to start with.
You can’t improve the lives of humans without more energy. So we are going to be using more and more energy every year as far as you can look forward.
Alex-agreed. They keep hatching and trees disappear, germs circulate, the environment is degraded. Its a death spiral.
If your reasons for buying an electric car is to save the planet then you are barking up the wrong tree. We cannot control what China does on its own territory and if they want to use fossil fuels they will do it no matter what we want. The reason to go electric should be and is the economic advantages they provide over internal combustion engines in every way from the efficiency of generating movement to the number of parts an electric motor needs as well as drastically lower maintenance costs.
I don’t see electric and ICE as being mutually exclusive and that to have one you must eliminate the other. Both can prosper in the transportation ecosystem. A lot of this confusion comes from the idea that it is a moral question and both sides accuse the other of not being moral enough. ICE proponents rightly point out the electric can use more resources than ICE and electric supporters rightly say that the supply chain for ICE cars is extremely dirty and harmful to the environment. I prefer not to search for the moral high ground because there really isn’t any. To have both we need to dig a lot of stuff out of the ground. I see no problem with getting the electricity from oil and gas since it still would be cheaper than ICE. Personally I think that nuclear will be the best solution going forward but I can live with a mix of fossil, wind, solar and nuclear.
It’s only now that the advantages of electric cars are becoming apparent so the drive to go electric is self-sustaining now even without subventions. Unfortunately the legacy manufacturers blinked and found themselves far behind but they will get the manufacturing down eventually. They have no choice. Tesla needs competitors and when they get some serious ones prices for electric cars will drop further.
The issue that you correctly point out is that this isn’t a one size fits all solution. And as Mish has pointed out in numerous previous articles is that the Government is really bad at picking winners, i.e. fluorescent bulbs over LED’s.
The other factor nobody has addressed here is, what if China decides to invade Taiwan? They could virtually eliminate the availability of the precious Rare Earth minerals required to build EV’s and in the same brush stroke remove the ability of almost all other car manufacturers of their computer chips neutering them in getting their cars on the market
The china excuse gets old. GHGs being added to the atmosphere is the issue. EVs are only part of the solution.
Take a peek further at energy loss via energy transfer from the source through charge and use.
Then take a peek at the pyrometallurgy process to do the recyling part.
Some footprint there?
Future material recycling will be done more and more with clean energy. Which is now on par or cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will continually get more expensive while renewable energy is still looking for its bottom cheapest price.
Do you know if anyone has built a wind/solar cement plant yet?
The article I linked to addressed this issue.
“Recycling: Recycling will be irrelevant for a long time, as far as mitigating upstream minerals demands. Since manufacturers claim that EV batteries will last a decade, that means that there won’t be much of anything available to begin recycling until the early 2030s. The best that IEA could come up with is recycled minerals meeting 1%–2% of battery demand by 2030. As for the following decades, enthusiasts’ unrealistic dream of perfect recycling, even were it feasible, would still leave the need for an astronomical rise in overall minerals supplied.”
EV batteries on Teslas are expected to go 300,000 miles. Tesla is coming up with batteries that will go a million miles. You haven’t been really up on the field of electric cars and batteries.
Decent article Mish. Lots of unknowns going forward.
EVs are one small piece in a very large and complex energy transition puzzle that most of the world is attempting this century. Which means that even if we could snap our fingers today and replace every personal ICE vehicle with an EV for personal transportation, it certainly wouldn’t solve the global warming and climate change problem by itself.
Transportation accounts for just 20% of global manmade CO2 emissions. Road transport is 75% of that 20%, or just 15% of CO2 emissions. So replacing every road transport ICE vehicle with an EV version could “possibly” reduce CO2 emissions by up to 15%. As your article correctly pointed out, even if we save 15% here, there are other emissions associated with the production of everything that goes into EVs that offset some of that saving.
And of course, CO2 is not the only GHG to worry about. Lots of CH4 as well. And then there are those manmade “forever” chemicals which are small in volume but tens of thousands of times worse than CO2 and CH4.
Sadly, there is way too much focus on EVs when it comes to solutions to our global warming problem. And the problem keeps getting worse as time goes on. 2023 is likely going to be the warmest year since we started keeping records 150 years ago. 2024 likely to be even worse, given the strengthening El NIno adding a little extra warmth.
Which means that there will continue to be pressure on the fossil fuel industry to cut back or shut down. Which will lead them to further reduce E&P spending. Which will tighten supplies. All while demand for fossil fuels keeps increasing every year. Which means higher prices and bigger profits for the oil and gas industry. Which is why I am staying long on oil and gas companies for the rest of this decade.
Yes, possibly a good call to stay long in O&G for your portfolio.
But in terms of combating rising global temperatures, what alternatives to a move to EV’s do you suggest?
Regarding the 15% to 20% of CO2 emissions from road transport, do you know what is the next largest contributor? Or is there a larger contributor?
How are EVs a solution if it’s highly debatable they reduce carbon factoring downstream costs?
Both my sons now have EV’s, one a Hyundai and one a Tesla, and I’ve driven both. My assessment is that once you have driven an EV, you will never want to go back to an ICE vehicle – noisy, slower, polluting, and expensive to fuel and maintain.
Both kids charge their cars from their home solar panels, so it costs them $0 per kilometre (or mile). I contrast that to the $100 to $140 it costs me to fill my Toyota ute (pickup), 4 cylinder.
EV’s are the future, and they are here now.
How much did it cost them to install the panel systems?
They were not free.
You have to calculate and include the costs of the system including increased property taxes as well as foregone interest income on the capital cost of the system to figure out the actual, real costs
You are right, these factors must be calculated as well. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I know that both sons ‘spreadsheeted’ this all out before they started. I do know that they have eliminated any household electricity consumption bills, as well as powering their cars. (BTW, $6000 for solar panels x 5% interest = ~$300, which would disappear into my petrol fuel tank in 3 – 4 weeks).
In the US, transport is 28%, electric power 25%, industry 23%.
link to epa.gov
Worldwide is different. Electricity 25%, Agriculture 24%, Industry 21%, Transportation 14%.
link to epa.gov.
Odd that my comment with links went to moderation.
Largest GHG contributors are electricity, transport, industry, agriculture. Percentages vary drastically by country.
Regarding replacing ICE vehicles, EVs are probably the best solution. Hydrogen fuel cells are good as well but even harder to scale up than EVs. Both come with loads of issues to deal with.
We will be using ICE vehicles for many more decades. Their numbers will keep increasing worldwide for the rest of this decade (at least) before beginning to decline next decade as production of EVs scales up.
Thanks P.D.
I going to do an article of reader comments and yours will make the list.
You should see some of the batty replies I got on Twitter, one citing a nonsensical McKinsey study that was nothing more than an exercise in wishful thinking.
Thanks Mish. There are no easy answers to the global warming problem. However, it is important to recognize that global warming is a problem that we need to deal with. And it is a problem that is going to be with us for the next few centuries. Still, problems provide opportunities for investors to take advantage of.
So what’s the ideal average global temperature we’re seeking with all these mandates? And who gets to decide this magic number?
According to this site, the ideal global average mean temperature for mankind ranges from 11C to 15C.
link to vividmaps.com
In the last 150 years the global average temperature increased from 14C to 15C. And it is heading higher. So we are beginning to push past our ideal range.
What is more important though is the speed of temperature change. If temperatures increase or decrease by 5C over 10000 years, it allows time for life to adapt. If temperatures change that much in 500 years, life struggles to adapt. The current rapid change in temperature is already causing problems for many species.
Global temperature has always been cyclical over long time periods. Temperature does not track with carbon dioxide – CO2 is relatively irrelevant as an influence over atmospheric temperature. The record of sun cycle behavior – sunspots, etc. – is far more influential.
2% increase per year per the Fed
Yes. Temperature is cyclical over time. Scientists understand this natural cyclicality. That is why you are aware of it.
Scientists also know that the natural temperature changes take a long time to happen, like 1C in 4000 years, allowing most life forms to adapt.
The also know that the rapid changes now, 1C in 150 years, are not natural, are caused by man, and are too fast for many life forms to adapt.
They also know it isn’t sunspots.
But you are free to believe whatever you want if it makes you happy.
Because it doesn’t really matter what you believe. What matters is what the tens of thousands of decision makers all over the world believe (heads of governments, corporations, etc). And they believe the science that says the current global warming is from mankind’s GHG emissions and that it is going to negatively affect mankind if we don’t do something about it.
And I will continue to base my investment decisions on their beliefs; not yours.
lol
This presentation seems a bit disingenuous, specifically where it lists mining of materials like steel, copper and cobalt as detrimental to the environment.
Unlike EV’s, ICE’s only use natural, green, steel & farm-grown materials?
To date, this is the best presentation on topic I’ve found – link to youtube.com
.
Gee, whoever’s actually running things up there has pretty much announced the actual goals. Force an impossible mandate while crippling the means to support it. Slaves are just so unbelievably stupid. There’s going to be a reckoning. I’m just so happy to live long enough to watch how stupid gets fixed. Just remember that if the internet alone were to go down, our civilization would instantly perish. If we lose electricity, some 80% were estimated by the Deagle Report to die within 6 months in the US. I’d call that a very rosy outlook myself. The only reason politicians get away with being such horrible grifters is because the stupid slaves need their chains. Theyll believe anything to keep liberty away from them. Me? Probably won’t make it either. It’s more a matter of having horrible luck surviving something like that.
So you’re saying you’re going to go buy a bike?
If there’s anything enslaving us, it’s cars in general, EV or not. You sit in traffic and get fat and watch your life tick away. Now, I still have one, because I’m not quite that idealistic. But I can get around just fine with no electricity or gas if I need to.
Chains indeed. Bike chains!
Funny you mention the internet. Because 25 years ago I was reading similar stories about how it would be impossible to handle the needed bandwidth we currently enjoy.
Yeah, and I remember 10MB (that’s megabytes) on a 3 disk hard drive was hard to believe.
There are a few minor problems with replacing the current fleet of ICE vehicles. The first generation alone will require the mining and refining of more copper than has been mined in all of human history. Other similar problems exist with things like concrete, steel, and other common minerals, not to mention the energy needed.
Info here:
link to robertbryce.com
The myth is that the green energy economy is super extract happy when its just the opposite. It is 535 times less extraction than fossil fuels.
link to distilled.earth
A Fossil Fuel Economy Requires 535x More Mining Than a Clean Energy Economy
Transitioning to clean energy would reduce the volume and harm of mining dramatically
In 2020, 7 million tons of minerals were mined globally for low-carbon energy, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). (These are often referred to as “transition minerals.”) In order to limit warming to 2 degrees celsius, we’ll need to scale up that production to about 28 million tons per year.
15 billion tons of coal oil and natural gas are extracted every year.
The tesla Cybertruck is going to use a 48 volt electrical system instead of the usual 12 volts. They state it will require 75% less copper. If it works out, I imagine everyone will follow.
Duh.
“Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X batteries run at nominal voltages of about 375 volts and 350 volts, respectively. Tesla Roadster batteries are rated around 480 VDC.”
Read much?
I’m not buying the article’s premiss. Once you are running a society on renewable energy, ICE vehicles just can’t cut it.
link to oilprice.com
The good news: whereas these studies have arrived at varying emission figures, they have invariably found that the greenhouse-gas emission difference caused by the carbon-intensive production of BEVs vs. ICE vehicles is virtually erased in the first few years of an EVs life.
In one such study conducted by the University of Michigan, it takes 1.4 to 1.5 years for EV sedans to erase the pollution advantage of ICE vehicles due to the manufacturing process; 1.6 to 1.9 years for S.U.V.s and about 1.6 years for pickup trucks. These numbers are based on the average number of vehicle miles driven in the United States.
According to the study, on average, emissions from B.E.V. sedans are ~35% of the emissions from an internal-combustion sedan; electric S.U.V.s produce ~37% of the emissions of a gasoline-powered vehicle while B.E.V. pickups create ~34% of the emissions of an internal combustion model. All-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs, which operate as EVs for limited distances), produce lower tailpipe emissions than ICE vehicles, and zero tailpipe emissions when they run only on electricity.
Wrong.
Such studies do not include downstream costs.
For starters most minerals are mined and/or refined in China, using diesel to mine and coal to refine. China is still adding coal-fired plants. And what about the infrastructure costs including the necessary minerals. None of that is properly factored in to fluff pronouncements.
There is mining now with the giant battery trucks. If the mining is at the top of the mountain, the truck uses regen onthe way down with a load. Batteries are recharged on the way down giving enough charge to get back up the mountain with no load which requires less energy. Utility wires can be brought in with overhead power supplying the truck. The electric trucks outperform the diesel in work accomplished with less cost of energy. Electric motors shine in both power and efficiency out performing fossil fuel engines. The studies mentioned above point out carbon payback is a short time.
30 mpg car uses 500 gallons gas every 15000 miles. That is 10,000 lbs carbon emitted in that time.
A 3 mile per kw-hr car uses 5000 kw-hrs per 15 000 miles. My utility is .6 lb. Co2 per kw-hr. This puts me at 3000 lbs co2 per 15,000 miles. 7000 lbs difference catches up quite quickly to the difference between ice and bev.
China using diesel in the present is not the same as China using diesel in the future. China will reduce their pollution emissions down the road. The point is we get to over production of renewable energy to provide storage power for low producing times of RE. Over production does bring up the low RE times even higher.
At over production of RE, the price of energy comes down during overproduction times saving consumers money. During low production times, the car itself can be the storage source for the utility to use paying the consumer for their battery bank.
Good that you mention something that has so far gone unmentioned.
Charging your car when energy is cheap and selling it back to the utility when it is expensive:
[1] Reduces your electrical bill
[2] Buffers peaks in demand and supply
Best of all, it does so on a market basis.
You have obviously never dealt with selling power to the utilities.
Please list where you can do this.
I don’t understand why there is not a push to make nuclear power the primary source of electricity. Solar, wind etc as far as I know are not a cost competitive or viable alternative to replace the fossil fuel grid.
link to cleantechnica.com
One-Third Of All Electricity Will Come From Renewables By 2030
The latest report from RMI finds that renewables are experiencing exponential growth and will provide one-third of all electricity by 2030.
With the new IRA law, solar is quite economical. It was competitive before the law passed and now will take off even more so.
No solar is not and won’t be.
Especially in the USA with its cheap electricity prices.
Solar wind and storage beat coal now. Interesting.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Mish,
China is leading the world in EV adoption. Much of it is because of government regulation. Next year, I expect the majority of cars sold in China to be electric. Why is China pushing this if it will actually be worse for the environment? Makes no sense.
china is fulfilling production quotas the way the USSR used to
link to youtube.com
Thank you for providing some balance to this article.
Your welcome
How can you run an entire society on renewables when not one solar panel or wind turbine has ever been made without fossil fuels? Even the solar panels on the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada does not produce the factory’s needs. And forget about the in in Buffalo, NY!
Power supplies are fungible. We get power from fossil fuels and renewables at the same time and it’s impossible to know where each electron came from. So, stating not one panel has been made without fossil fuels makes no sense. Certainly more than enough solar power is added to the grid to completely power a solar factory. Whether or not any single factory is completely powered by solar is meaningless. A solar panel factory can be built and operate solely on solar power. There’s no doubt about that.
“A solar panel factory can be built and operate solely on solar power. ”
Just not profitably.
Never say never, as Ronald Reagen said. There are 100% renewable energy locations in the world now. It already exists.
Post the data.
link to en.wikipedia.org
I’ve read a lot of articles on this subject, but Mish writes very clearly and avoids characterizations. I don’t have to worry about filtering out hype.
Moving from one 3000 pound vehicle to a 3500 pound vehicle that’s a bit more efficient to move my/your 200 pound corpse around is stupid no matter how you’re fueling them.
That said my EV has already pretty much paid for itself in fuel/maintenance savings and I have a hard time imagining the production of the battery used the equivalent of several thousand gallons of gas, innumerable oil changes and repairs to various moving parts, etc. And it’ll keep going for decades I’m guessing (even at, say, 50% battery capacity in 2040 it’ll continue to be a perfectly good get-around-town car).
Actually owning an EV really shows how absurd the anti EV claims are. The oil and gas industry needs to update their arguments against EVs. None of their predictions ever come to pass. The grids haven’t evaporated. Cars aren’t catching fire. Prices haven’t skyrocketed due to lack of rare earths.
I recently read an article of how Carmax has a lot of EVs for sale. People no longer want them. I looked at their web site and out of 45000+ cars for sale, they had 727 EVs for sale. And I suspect almost everyone who sold their EV bought a new EV.
Globally it won’t work. EVs are great for certain circumstances in the current state (not fantasy future state). Unfortunately most of the planet does not have a reliable grid or even a grid for that matter like this entire continent called Africa:
” Once they have their electric vehicle, they also face some issues since Tesla doesn’t support the market with service centers, Supercharger stations, navigation updates, and connectivity.”
link to electrek.co
There are many many more regions in the same situation around the planet. It’s mainly where people live in dirt houses and roofs made of cardboard boxes. EV’s are not going to happen for them anytime soon.
My BEV has a 500 watt battery that takes me around 80 miles, depending on hills and headwinds. I charge at home in about 4 hours. I ‘drive’ it around 500 miles/month in a climate similar to Vermont. cost me $1,200 used. Its a Pedal assist e-bike. 🙂
I live car free. Its liberating. Once you go car free you never go back.
If you don’t go anywhere or do anything, yep, you don’t need a car. Is that the forced goal?
doesn’t matter either way, the IRA will release enough CO2 into the atmosphere that nothing is going to change. All the money for roads is creating jobs while releasing carbon emissions from the asphalt, it’s all BS.
I have a couple projects I’m working on but the next one is learning how to make biodiesel from used fast food oil. I had a CO in the Army that had been doing it for years. He’d get used oil from fast food places, filter it and converted his VW Jetta to run on it. The filtering though is not easy. Like a fine Vodka.
Gas engines are being attacked but not fast food. If I can get the used grease from fast food I can run my cars and lawn equipment the rest of my life. As long as EV owners keep loving their crap food I will salute them. Keep eating it so I can run my pressure washer, 0 turn mower, truck. Nothing but respect.
I think everyone should understand that EVs are not about moving everyone from gas to electric. They are about moving a LOT of people completely out of car ownership. Owning a car is an essential component of The American Dream. But they called it that because it was not reality. It was a pseudo reality paid for with debt. And now that game is over because the debt is no longer cheap.
CPIflation is the tool being used to push the “useless eaters” out of mainstream living. Hollywood likes to telegraph the plans of the elite before they occur. So what I am talking about is an Elysium situation where there are a lot of nice things in the world but only for elite. Serfs can go struggle for their existence and die young.
Yes, EV’s are about pushing people out of vehicles. Since the costs are already high, scarcity of materials will drive prices higher, and burdening the taxpayer with building new electric grid infrastructure; affordability necessarily has to fall.
Lithium is a hugely abundant mineral. The holdup is in processing, which in happening.
In 10 years, EVs are going to be dirt cheap compared to the price of current gas cars.
The debt is still cheap.
Wait until it is 15% again.
EV isn’t about climate change. It’s about the easy stuff to extract is gone. The EV
mfg are disruptive innovators co. Ilan has his own customers, distribution and advertisement systems.
EV , the winds and the sun kick the can down the global econ collapse, because there isn’t energy to support 8/9 billion people on earth (Tverberg).
Looking at it from that perspective things are bit clearer.
We have more people than we need.
And, we continue to make more faster than they are going away.
Well, Mish, the Manhattan Institute is hardly going to give you a balanced report on this topic. And I know you appreciate balance!
This report is full of “don’t knows” about this and that. I would agree that saying, as a certain fact, that universal EVs will be “good for the environment” is “nonsense,” to use your term. We can’t be certain of that. Neither can we be certain that universal EVs will be “bad for the environment”. What we can say is that there are trade offs. Universal EVs WILL bring CO2 emissions reductions (“good”); AND they WILL bring other adverse impacts (“bad”).
I think most of the latter are localized and therefore manageable. The former are not localized. That’s the problem which requires an urgent solution–if one takes the problem seriously.
What’s your alternative: continuing with the status quo? Drill baby drill?
Agreed.
What’s wrong with “I don’t know?”
Then factor in the guaranteed massive costs just to get “perhaps”.
Then speed up the timeline so it’s virtually impossible for the necessary infrastructure to be ready.
Finally, please note that China will be adding coal-fired plants up until 2030 to produce electricity for the EVs it produces!
My alternative, as always, is easy to state. Let the free market pick winners, not politicians.
And Ad Hominem attacks like this “Well, Mish, the Manhattan Institute …” indicate a lack of good rebuttal.
Mish you normally provide deep, well sourced analysis. The smearing guesstimates don’t cut it. Driving 100k miles with ICE takes roughly 4000 gallons of refined gasoline which requires pumping and transporting a larger amount of crude from the source. “I don’t know” how much other impact and resources are needed for that and I wouldn’t respect anyone smearing half baked guesstimates about that but there probably are fairly unbiased commenters who could. Solar and battery storage have come a long way since the 70s and compete very well compared to fossil fuels on their fully loaded costs. Please keep up with current state of the art and it’s progress and adjust your comments accordingly. If you’re going to bash EV, solar and battery subsidies please apply parity of bashing to fossil fuel subsidy and fully account for the human health costs of what comes out of tailpipes and smokestacks. It’s disappointing.
> Solar and battery storage have come a long way since the 70s and compete very well compared to fossil fuels on their fully loaded costs
Nonsense.
Utility companies are laughing at requests from trucking companies to expand power capacity to charge thirty EV trucks. Thirty trucks.
link to youtube.com
“My alternative, as always, is easy to state. Let the free market pick winners, not politicians.”
Exactly right. Politicians, bureaucrats, and their lickspittle experts always misallocate resources. If consumers believe that there is an impending climate crisis, and that EVs and non-functioning dishwashers will help to avert it, then they will demonstrate their preference for those products by paying for them with their own money.
Thanks for your reply.
Glad to see someone understands.
We do not apply that logic the military or the justice system.
Many things require collective action — the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia depended on farmers performing [mandated] maintenance on their irrigation canals. In Ancient Persia, the whole empire depended on channeling irrigation water from the mountains. The Netherlands, arguably the first/most democratic country in the Middle Ages (the low countries) had a more egalitarian social system that differed from feudalism because of the need to cooperate on water canals to pump out the water … also not on a voluntary basis.
Any country whose military works on a voluntary basis will be overrun. Insurance is also an attempt at collective restacking of risk.
The market, which is to say people, should get to choose what they want without a political party making something uneconomical appear economical. I have to think battery operated cars are better for some people while gasoline powered cars are better for others.
Speaking of “I don’t know … what is not /never being asked is … if we all switch to EVs, mass transit, etc. what affect will that have on the global *temperature”! This should be the result sought, but no climate scientist, DOE engineer and so on can even come close to answering that question, which should be the ultimate result. The models are still immature, out of whack with one another, they still don’t have enough compute horsepower to model the affects of cloud cover. Water vapor as a greenhouse gas and a coolant far exceeds any effect from CO2, so just blindly following the dogma of reducing it will very likely not give expected result.
Every existing/new thingies/tech should be measured against temperature reduction or stabilization.
But, of course, the advocates are politicians and quasi-religious zealots.
The climate model sponsored by Exxon in 1980 is accurate today. Its part of the core knowledge of Exxon Knew.
Sounds a lot like the tobacco industry writing about cancer causes.
“I think most of the latter are localized and therefore manageable. The former are not localized. That’s the problem which requires an urgent solution–if one takes the problem seriously.”
Localized problems, are problems you actually experience. For real. Like the localised heating of falling into a furnace. That hurts. For real. Not very manageable, that one……
As opposed to vague, nefarious, scary dark forces; which you only “know” is a problem because some self promoter on TeeVee says so. All else equal, increased atmospheric CO2 will result i higher global temperatures. In a world where far and away most life prefers to hang out in the area around the equator, IOW in the warmest temperatures the planet has to offer, insisting that a few degrees plus is some sort of huge “problem”, is just hyperbole.
For the minority who prefers colder temps: Ditch the sweater for a tshirt. Or become a nudist. Or move from LA to San Francisco. Or surf Oregon. It’s pretty there, just unpleasantly cold. Or move from Michoacan to Michigan…
There are plenty of much less contested vacant space on the planet, in colder regions than in hotter ones. No need, at all, to freak out about some imminent loss of places suitable for freezing to death, anytime soon.
In general, outside of children’s fairytales: Dark, nefarious, scary, too-big-to-pin-down things you are told to be scared of; can’t be pinned down because they aren’t really scary. It just benefits fear mongers on the make, to fool the gullible into believing they are.
I think what is missing in this conversation is reliable and clean public transit. Replacing the fleet of a congestive, energy hogging vehicle with the same problems but different tech is a bad answer. When I travel in Europe, specifically Switzerland, you don’t need a car most times. Its amazing experience. Frequency, cleanliness and excellent transfers. Its a money loser but its so much better for everything. In US outside of major eastern cities, pubic transit is a sleeping area for homeless and drunks who lost their licenses. If you are standing at an LA Rapid Transit stop you are either a migrant homecleaner or you got stopped for DUI. Its a total shame. SF Bart just got new cars but stupid politics won’t allow for losers to get kicked off
40% of all trips in the US are 3 miles or less
40% of all trips in the top 20 cities are 2 miles or less
walking and cycling are the modes to look at 🙂