Electric Vehicles are a Band-Aid Solution to Climate Change
Electric vehicles are not exactly the night in shining armor coming to save us from disaster, despite what many buyers believe.
New legislation has even been created to encourage the use of these vehicles over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. California’s new legislation requires that by the year 2035, all newly purchased vehicles must be either hybrid or electric vehicles.
These types of vehicles boast reduced tailpipe emissions, by up to 70%, in some areas. To thoroughly consider their sustainability, many different aspects of production and usage must be taken into consideration of sustainability.
Battery production
The batteries used in most electric vehicles on the market today are lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). There are a few issues with relying on these batteries.
To start, metals including cobalt and lithium that are necessary for LIBs are increasingly rare. This means that the cost of producing LIBs is vulnerable to price fluctuations, causing electric vehicles to have a potentially unstable market value. “The uneven distribution of essential raw minerals may potentially give rise to geopolitical challenges and impact the global LIB industry”. Some experts are comparing lithium mining to oil extraction since both processes are economically unstable and cause environmental degradation.
The fossil fuel supply chain is considered to be more stable than the LIB supply chain due to how rapidly it is evolving and developing(Yang et al.). These experts are worried that lithium is presenting the same issues we have with gasoline vehicles to electric vehicles, which will limit their success.
Mining
In addition to this, the actual process of mining these materials is very invasive and causes a lot of environmental degradation. Lithium mining leads to loss of water, biodiversity loss, ground destabilization, contaminated soils, and even toxic waste that all pose a threat to the local population. Each of these side effects has a major impact on the health of the environment and affects many different aspects of life for the local communities.
Water loss and habitat contamination are some of the most devastating to an area's economy and food security. A total of 68% of the world’s lithium reserves are located in South America within Indigenous communities. These communities depend on lithium and cobalt mining for income.
This area in the South American Andes is very dry, to begin with, and lithium mining exacerbates the issue of water insecurity in the region. This creates issues for the Indigenous communities that rely on these lands to graze and sustenance farm. Experts are advising that local Indigenous communities are involved in consultation in hopes to lessen these impacts.
Energy source
The efficiency and sustainability of electric vehicles are largely dependent on where and how the electricity is generated. Some power plants use nuclear energy or natural gas while others use coal, which all have varying degrees of carbon emissions per unit of energy.
For example, EVs in West Virginia produce a similar amount of carbon emissions to ICE vehicles. This is because power plants in West Virginia still heavily rely on coal as their energy source, a very dirty fuel.
The difference in emissions between fuels can be quite extreme, as coal emits nearly double the amount of CO2 of natural gas. Compared to renewable energy sources, it is even more extreme since renewable sources emit little to no carbon.
Without the resources for renewable energy power plants, electric vehicles can not reach their fullest potential.
Land use impacts
One study states that electric vehicles encourage more vehicle usage, reporting a 20% increase in driving time after the ownership of an electric vehicle. By allowing drivers to travel further distances, it becomes more attractive to do so.
While some may argue this increase should be celebrated as it is a testament to the efficiency of EV batteries, researchers argue that it is detrimental environmentally and socially. When considering total societal impacts, one study found that urban sprawl is perpetuated because of the introduction of electric vehicles.
Since personal vehicles allow point-to-point mobility, drivers are not restricted to living in high-density populations. Encouraging electric vehicles will encourage urban sprawl, as it will become more attractive to access areas further from urban centers.
A solution
The best-proposed solution to these issues presented by electric vehicles is to focus on producing renewable energy. It is necessary that we begin to explore the capabilities of renewable energy in order to shift away from fossil fuels. In conjunction with
It may be beneficial to develop renewable energy before producing electric vehicles on a mass scale to ensure that the overproduction of EVs does not occur.
Another solution for reducing carbon emissions from transportation is to heavily encourage public transit. Public transit is a solution that doesn't require as much additional infrastructure as EVs do. Public transportation does not offer exactly what personal vehicles do, but will be necessary for a sustainable future.
