Electric Vehicles' 3 for 1 sale: Reducing Carbon, Noise, and Air Pollution

The US is turning towards battery electric vehicles. I’ve seen charging stations springing up in my village and the government has made massive commitments to electric passenger cars. All this has stirred up lingering questions for me. Are battery electric vehicles, or BEVs, really more environmentally friendly? Aren’t the batteries an environmental hazard from mining to manufacturing to disposal? Don’t a lot more resources go into building a BEV than a standard internal combustion engine? And what’s the difference between an electric vehicle and a battery electric vehicle anyway?

Well, first off, all electric vehicles, EVs, have an electric motor which turns the wheels. In an old fashioned internal combustion energy, a mixture of gasoline and air is ignited creating pressure which moves the pistons, which in turn turns the wheels. In contrast, electric cars have electric motor, powered by various means. For instance, hydrogen cars power their electric motor by combing oxygen with hydrogen. The hydrogen is stored in a fuel cell so these cars are sometimes called fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs. Alternatively, a BEV powers its electric motor with a battery. Both FCEVs and BEVs are zero emission cars. Stated so carefully, I am hoping to remember these distinctions until at least the fourth paragraph of this article.

The future of electric cars got a big boost on November 15 of 2021 when Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This act added $550 billion of funding to improve roads, the power infrastructure, rail lines, and to increased access to broadband and to clean up of toxic sites. Part of this package is $7.5 billion to build a national network of EV charging points, especially in rural, disadvantaged, or hard-to-reach locations. One particular goal of the act is to make it easier for people who can not charge an EV at their homes to have convenient public places to charge them. Together, the Biden administration and automobile companies are hoping to boost US electric vehicles sales to 50% of the US new car market by 2030.

The primary motivation for increasing the percentage of EVs is, of course, to reduce cars’ carbon emissions. Passenger cars account for about 17% of total US carbon emissions, which, when added to other modes of transport, such as trucks (7%) and aircraft (3%), sum up to 29% of the US’s total carbon emissions. If we can decarbonize transportation along with electricity, another of Biden’s targets for 2035, we’d half our carbon emissions. That’s pretty massive and it is the current plan, which is pretty awesome.

But this still left me rather confused for I’ve heard varying reports as to how much electric vehicles actually reduce carbon emissions. The reason for the confusion is because EV’s carbon reduction depends on how the energy, that is used to charge the battery, was created. Right now, on average, BEVs are responsible for 200 grams of carbon dioxide per mile driven (200 g CO2 / mile). This emission rate includes 70 g CO2 / mile from the original manufacturing of the car, spread over the car’s lifetime, and 130 g CO2 from the production of electricity to charge the battery and move the car down the road. If our electricity grid achieves 100% zero emissions, then BEVs emissions would only be those from manufacturing or 70gCO2 / mile driven. This is in contrast to internal combustion engine cars which emit, on average, 450 gCO2 / mile driven.

In addition to reduced carbon emissions, electric vehicles have no tail pipe emissions - meaning no small particulates, no carbon monoxide and no nitrogen dioxide all of which contribute significantly to reduced air quality in the form of smog, allergens, and ozone. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million people a year die from air pollution and that 99% of the global population breathes air that exceeds their guidelines for healthy air - largely due to tail pipe emissions. The EPA estimates that every dollar spent to reduce emissions from automobiles yields nine dollars in benefits to public health, the environment and productivity.

Electric vehicles are also much quieter than internal combustion engines. And as regular readers of this newsletter will know, noise pollution is such a large source of stress that it is considered the second biggest environmental health problem, second only to air pollution. But EVs are so quiet that they can catch us off guard. Any car traveling faster than 20 miles per hour emits enough wind and tire noise that we can hear them coming, but below that speed pedestrians don’t necessarily hear them. As a result, car-pedestrian accident rates have increased as electric vehicles have rolled out. In the EU, the UK and the US, electric vehicles must now be kitted out with Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems that makes a sound if the car is traveling below a certain speed in order to alert pedestrians or cyclists.

So electric cars grant us reduced carbon emissions, and drastic reductions in air pollution and noise pollution. What’s not to like? Perhaps it is the upfront cost. Electric cars are typically more expensive to buy than gasoline cars, but they save us loads on fill ups and maintenance, have greater longevity than gasoline cars, and come with a hefty rebate, in both the UK and the US. Experts think their sticker price will decrease to the same cost as gasoline cars in the next few years. So costs shouldn’t remain a sticking point.

The biggest crunch point with EVs is the batteries. Drivers of electric vehicle will be aware that batteries in cars have limited range, say 100 to a few 100 miles, and they can take a long time (more than an hour) to charge. This can make them unfeasible for long distance trips. However, there has been a breakthrough in lithium battery technology in the shape of a solid-state electrolyte. The electrolyte is the medium between the two electrodes and plays an important role in the chemical reactions within the battery that produce the electric current. These new solid-state batteries have longer lifetimes and can be recharged in 10 to 20 minutes so a driver can take a short break on a longer journey to quickly recharge. There are loads of ongoing EV battery studies and it seems likely that the distance and recharging issues will soon be resolved.

The real crux point of the batteries is not in the know how, but rather in the materials that go into batteries themselves. A favorite electrode material for rechargeable batteries is lithium. Lithium is the third element in the period table and it is the lightest of the metals. Metals, as you may recall, have just one electron in their outer shell and therefore they release this outer electron relatively easily to create an electric current. Being the lightest and smallest of the metals means that lithium makes for dense and light weight batteries. There are different kinds of lithium batteries depending on the material used in conjunction with the lithium, typically cobalt or nickel.

With the growing demand for electric vehicles, and other electric devices, the elements that go into making these batteries are in greater and greater demand. The International Energy Agency estimates that over the next two decades clean energy will use almost 90% of our global lithium reserves and 60% of nickel and cobalt. Reserves only account for those minerals which are financially viable to recover, so the size of our reserves will grow as the price of the minerals increase. Because it is expensive to recover EV battery minereals there are not many places where it is mined. Currently, the top 3 produces of lithium and cobalt control well over 75% of the global output. This opens us up to vulnerabilities in the supply chain. Biden’s commitments to take the US toward electric vehicles therefore sends an essential signal to investors and manufacturers that it is safe to invest in seeking out new sources of minerals and continued battery research.

Our growing demand for lithium batteries also highlights the fact we currently only recycle 5% of lithium batteries. This is in stark contrast to our success of recycling 99% of lead-acid batteries used in internal combustion engines. Efforts to recycle BEV batteries are impeded by a lack of clear labeling on batteries. Recycling facilities don’t even know what is in a given a battery let alone have an overarching strategy for recovering the metals as there are many battery designs. The World Economic Forum has called for standards for labeling and sharing data. This will improve both material recovery from batteries but also aid in ‘second-life’ uses. Car batteries are typically retired when their charge capacity drops to 66%. Retired BEV batteries can be used in other ways such as storing solar energy. Better labeling would facilitate these second-life applications and, by improving our recycling of BEV batteries, could reduce our demand of lithium and cobalt by 30-40%.

While we’re on the topic of the end-of-life of lithium batteries, did you know that improper disposal of lithium batteries has caused a recent increase of fires at waste facilities? These fires arise when the electrodes of two different batteries come into contact and create a spark and can cause extensive damage and danger. When storing or transporting batteries it is wise to cover the electrodes with tape, or put each battery in its own bags. Even tiny Li-batteries, like those in E-cigarrettes, can give a big enough spark to start a fire. And of course, we shouldn’t put batteries in the regular garbage , for the metals can leak and contaminate soils and water ways.

Saving the worst for last, there are disturbing stories of the conditions at mines for EV battery materials. The International Energy Agency has identified a number of environmental and social concerns at cobalt and lithium mines ranging from inadequate waste and water management to inadequate worker safety, appalling child labor practices and corruption. Perhaps the most dramatic of these occurs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where 70% of the world’s cobalt is produced. The Katanga Copperbelt in the DRC is considered one of the most polluted places on earth due to contamination of water, soil, air and food. People living near Katanga mines are found to have significantly high levels of 16 different types of metal in their urine samples including the highest ever reported urinary copper concentration for a general population (Banza et al 2009). The list of implications of metals in a human body is disturbingly long and yet doesn’t begin to convey the devastation that unregulated mining has had on the people of Katanga. Impacts include disorders of neurodevelopment, decreased fertility, increased birth defects, respiratory problems, dermatitis, and increased cardiovascular disease. There are dreadful stories of children sifting through mine cast offs searching for minerals with no gloves or masks, inhaling dust and getting the metal rich dust all over their bodies.

These atrocities scream out for the need for manufactures to understand and report on their supply chains. Thankfully, there is now such an initiative - the Responsible Materials Initiative, or RMI. As part of the RMI, Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and Ford have all committed to sourcing their minerals form responsible mines, increasing supply chain transparency, and searching for minerals outside the DRC.

So what are our action points on this topic? If you are in the market for a new-to-you car, you can ask your car dealer about the source of the minerals in their BEV batteries. They may not know the answer, but it’s powerful to let the dealers know we care about these issues. We can chose those manufacturers who are committed to the RMI, and again let the dealer know this. But more powerful yet is to reduce our travel and our purchases that lead to more travel. The more we can pressure the system towards local living the better. For green-swapping is never the full answer. And finally, while EVs will dramatically reduce our emissions, the real green driving revolution will come when self-driving cars become the norm. Studies predict that if self-driving cars become the norm, there will be 80% fewer cars on the road. What’s more, driverless cars are predicted to reduce driving fatalities by as much as 90%.

I can see it now. A driverless taxi picks me up and takes me to my dinner date with Sting so we can discuss his new song about me and my eco-battles. We have a little too much to drink and I have to fend off his flirtations, but no worries. I deftly summon a carbon free, driverless ride home. Very civilized.