By now, you’ve probably seen the image/video of President Biden riding in an all-electric GM Hummer (below). With the advent of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the EV market is changing and we wanted to follow up on our June 2022 post about minerals used in EVs to include news trends, advancements, and genuine concerns.
Since we know that EVs are powered in majority by mined (and recycled) materials, swapping a combustion engine for a very large battery, concerns have arisen about the weight of some EVs. The two categories? Safety concerns and environmental concerns. The first seems pretty straightforward, as the Fast Company article mentions. Vehicles like the electric Hummer weigh almost twice as much as their conventional cousins, nearly 9000 lbs! Safety experts warn that this increased weight paired with faster acceleration are terrible for road safety.
But what about environmental concern; aren’t EVs supposed to be fixing the problem of our reliance on fossil fuels? Here’s the dig from The Atlantic’s David Zipper, “Worse yet, enormous EVs are compounding the global shortage of essential battery minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel. That Hummer EV’s battery weighs as much as a Honda Civic, consuming precious material that could otherwise be used to build several electric-sedan batteries[.]” In the rest of the article he basically argues that vanity and not the desire to curb emissions is driving a majority of EV purchasing and that the massive amount of materials used in each vehicle are an environmental drain.
So now it seems we need a solution to a solution. How? Reducing car dependence outright says Professor Thea Riofrancos, author of Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining. Her team estimates they can cut 66% of lithium needs by 2050, but the impacts are extreme, such as moving many people to at least medium-density living environments. For a more detailed breakdown of the pros and cons of the report, you can check out the Breakthrough Institute’s breakdown.
One point that is agreed upon between authors, and already being capitalized on by entrepreneurs, is the need to recycle EV batteries. While there are certainly not currently enough batteries to recycle to make an impact on near-term mining needs (think about how many people you know who have EVs and then consider how many of those people are ready to recycle their batteries…), there is a general consensus that we should recycle near 100% of them. And startups like B2U Storage Solutions in Lancaster, Calif. are maximizing on this. Their business model is to use second life batteries on solar arrays to store energy and sell it back to the grid at night. The good news— they’re profitable.
What's your take? How would you balance the scales of EV advancement with climate goals and need for mined materials?
