Treehugger - A letter from the Natural History Museum's head of Earth Sciences, Professor Richard Herrington, along with other experts, points out the scale of the problem of building so many electric cars. They calculate that, even with the most efficient batteries available, full electrification of the auto fleet by 2035 would need a lot more mining.
The worldwide impact: If this analysis is extrapolated to the currently projected estimate of two billion cars worldwide, based on 2018 figures, annual production would have to increase for neodymium and dysprosium by 70%, copper output would need to more than double and cobalt output would need to increase at least three and a half times for the entire period from now until 2050 to satisfy the demand.
It would also take a lot of energy to make these cars ... Extrapolated to 2 billion cars worldwide, the energy demand for extracting and processing the metals is almost 4 times the total annual UK electrical output.
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2 comments:
It would take a lot less effort and resources to make cars that run on methane and to build massive methane capture compost facilities, then the methane being used a fuel would be recently part of plants or other biological waste. Every sewer plant should have one to capture the methane off of the solids that are such a waste disposal problem already. Methane engines are available now and would be way less rare earth mineral dependent then electric cars.
I thought that electric cars had to pay a 'road-tax' on the electricity that they used... I was wrong.
Plus, in Illinois, their annual automobile registration was really cheap - like around $35 for 2 years.
I would think that charging stations, either at home or anyplace, might be monitored like the meter coming into a home. Connect that meter to a credit card or something and make them pay a percentage at the end of the year, or quarterly.
In IL, annual registration is going wayyyy up this next year. But I don't think that is anyway of handling things, it will make people who don't drive much to keep their gasoline cars. Its not a fair 'pay to play' choice - if you like that kind of stuff.
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