United States’ President Joe Biden announced the phasing out of gasoline-powered, combustion engine cars and transition to 50% electric vehicles by the year 2030 in hopes of decreasing greenhouse gas emission and mitigating the detrimental effects of carbon dioxide on climate change. Electric vehicles are those that are powered by a charged battery and electric motor as opposed to a gas vehicle that is powered by fuel and an internal combustion engine.
They produce no tailpipe emissions and have no direct emissions of carbon dioxide unlike traditional cars. As technology advances, environmental sustainability becomes a critical factor when attempting to make the car manufacturing process as ecologically friendly as possible. So the question of “How green are electric cars really?” has become persistent in today’s society. The environmental implications of electric vehicles come from production of the lead batteries that they run on, the plug-in charging aspect that is connected to an electric grid, and recent governmental policies.
One component that makes the electric car operate and run without gasoline is the lead battery that powers it. In terms of climate change and according to the New York Times, “Coal tends to be a deciding factor” and is trying to be phased out with the introduction of electric cars but production of the batteries are still reliant on coal. These lead batteries are still a major environmental burden, “According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), just producing the battery for an electric car can emit almost a quarter as much as much of the greenhouse gas that a gasoline car emits across its entire lifetime” (Lomborg 1).
The production of the battery alone requires coal and fossil fuel based energy, ultimately resulting in carbon dioxide emissions. Also taking into consideration the coal coming from the electric used to charge up the vehicles, an electric car's first forty thousand miles will emit more carbon than a gas car - that is how potent and intensive the lead electric car batteries are to mine and produce. The mass amounts of carbon dioxide being emitted to mine lead and manufacture the batteries for the electric cars will only intensify the climate crisis.
The simple principles of supply and demand support: “If a large number of electric cars are produced, the demand for lead for batteries will surge, requiring that more lead be mined” (Lave, Hendrickson, Michael 2). In addition to the carbon dioxide impact on the environment, the extraction and mining for the lead are extremely harmful to the environment, surrounding habitats, and even humans. It is reported that “Smelting and recycling the lead for these batteries will result in substantial releases of lead for these batteries will result in substantial release of lead into the environment” (Lave, Hendrickson, Michael 1). The environmental consequences of lead coming from the production of batteries on a mass scale in order to power electric cars are extremely alarming to human health as well.
Lead is a neurotoxin that, if exposed, can result in a lack of cognitive and behavioral problems. This puts affected workers in the mines and the workers who deal with the creation of the lead batteries at risk of these health issues. According to 1992 Toxics Release Inventory, “17% of the total lead and 11% of the lead compound released to the environment from on-site leaf processing facilities is emitted into the air. Lead and solid waste will slowly leach to the environment, exposing humans” (Lave, Hendrickson, Michael 2). With solid lead waste bleeding into the environment, it can threaten biodiversity.
The more lead that is exposed to animals in the environment, the more likely it is going to end up in the food chain and biomagnify. The demand for the lead batteries in order to power electric cars propose many environmental repercussions that affect humans as well and can even magnify the issue of climate change.
Another distinct feature that is prominent in electric vehicles and differentiates it from gas vehicles is the plug-in charging feature that gets its electricity from an electric grid. The car chargers are connected to the electric grid and depending on whether or not the grid is connected to a nonrenewable, coal powered energy source or a renewable energy source it can affect the amount of carbon dioxide emissions and its environmental impact. An electric vehicle car charger that is connected to an electric grid that is powered by a nonrenewable energy source is going to have to burn coal in order to produce electricity for that charger so that it can power the car. For instance, it’s stated that, “The electric car is recharged using electricity that almost everywhere is significantly fossil-fuel based” (Lomborg 1).
By attempting to alleviate the severity of the climate crisis, burning coal in order to produce electricity to charge the vehicle is creating a positive feedback loop. Jeremy Michalek, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, claims: “If you’ve got electric cars in Pittsburgh that are being plugged in at night and leading nearby coal plants to burn more coal to charge them, the client benefits won’t be as great, you can even get more air pollution”(Tabuchi, Plumber 3). Taking the life cycle of a car into account, long charge times, long commutes and a short range, plugging in your car in the long run is going to require lots of electricity and essentially a lot of coal.
On the other hand, an electric car charger that is connected to an electric grid that is powered by renewable energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal will produce almost zero- net carbon emission, making it significant environmental benefit. According to the New York Times’ Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at M.I.T, “The reason electric vehicles look like an appealing climate solution is that if we can make our grids zero-carbon, then vehicle emissions drop way, way down”(Tabuchi, Plumber 2).
Eliminating the fossil fuels burned to power the electric grid that charges the electric vehicles will decrease carbon emissions substantially and help ease climate change. With technology advancing and communities becoming more environmentally conscientious, electricity is being more efficient and are now taking more advantage of renewable energy resources. Data on the electricity generation resources from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2020 presents: “The Improvement has been driven partially by increasing EV's efficiency, but even more by the reduction in electricity generation from coal-fired power plants. Electricity from coal has fallen from a 45% share of the market to 28% in less than a decade. At the same time, electricity from solar and wind power has grown from less than 2% to 8% in 2018” (Reichmuth 3). Increasing renewable energy resources will increase the efficiency of electric vehicles as well and make them even more environmentally friendly and help combat carbon emissions.
With technology on the rise and electric cars increasing in popularity now more than ever, the relationship between the environment and these electric vehicles lead to the question, “So what does the future hold for electric transportation?” The up and coming shift from gasoline cars to electric cars are being supported and enforced by the United States government and President Biden’s policies. Aware of the environmental consequences the lead batteries, Biden Administration and the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries work together to combat the issues that the toxic waste brings by creating, “the National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries” and it purpose is, “codifying the findings of the battery supply chain review in a 10-year, whole-of-government plan to urgently develop a domestic lithium battery supply chain that combats the climate crisis by creating good-paying clean energy jobs across America”.
The government hopes to ease the cataminous that come with the extraction and production of the lead batteries and replacing them with lithium batteries. Lithium batteries are less toxic and damaging to the environment and last longer than the lead batteries so therefore, it will be mined less frequently. The Biden Administration takes into account the negative environmental effects that electric cars can have, especially with regards to their battery, and is attempting to combat it by adjusting the battery and mining regulations.
Additionally, President Biden’s new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has been released and put into action in hopes to help communities make an easy shift from gas to electric cars in “Administration priorities such as supporting rural charging, improving local air quality and increasing EV charging access in disadvantaged communities. Together, this is the largest-ever U.S. investment in EV charging and will be a transformative down payment on the transition to a zero-emission future”. The five billion dollars that the law included will help assimilate electric cars into daily life and to make them more convenient within communities.
Electric vehicles specifically have many components that have an impact on our environment. The processing and manufacturing of lead batteries to power these cars, chargers that lead back to an electric grid, and the government's involvement using policy to help increase electric car use and invest money in assimilating this technology into our daily lives all have environmental implications, even some indirectly. With the increase of technological advances and new means of transportation that follow, it's important to take into consideration the environmental impact and keep sustainability in mind before exploiting.
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