A TED Talk by Graham Conway, principal engineer at Southwest Research Institute, asserts that electric vehicles are less green than ICE cars says Tech news World.
- We are nowhere near the maximum potential for the electric car. Conway contends that for the next two or three decades, the hybrid approach might be better.
- Meanwhile, we should continue to explore alternatives like green hydrogen; a process where hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity.
I’m Not Anti-Electric
Let me start by pointing out that I drive an EV and have since 2019 when I leased one of the very first Jaguar I-Pace electric cars coming into the U.S. Last year I bought that car from the leasing company because I couldn’t find anything I liked better, and the lease buyout was around a grand less than what I could sell the car for. I’ve been covering electric cars since the late 1990s when I was the lead U.S. battery analyst on top of several other titles. So, I love electric cars, but I also know their shortcomings and there are still several.
Electric Car Shortcomings
As Conway pointed out, electric cars can be run in a closed room indefinitely without killing us and are certainly greener to operate. However, they have three big weaknesses. The first is that due to a near-total collapse of battery development in the early 1900s, battery technology is not where it otherwise would be. Lithium Ion has one-third the energy density of dynamite, the normal configuration is in small AA battery-like cells that are difficult to cool, and should the battery catch fire, it is wicked hard to put it out. Lithium Ion burns hot enough to melt aluminium and it will keep igniting as long as the cells contain enough energy to generate the heat needed to combust. That’s why we have reports of crashed Teslas catching fire again in wrecking yards. Further, as Conway mentioned, building these batteries is far from a green process and the substance is a pollutant, meaning the batteries must be recycled to prevent groundwater contamination.
Crypto Currency Miners
The second weakness is that largely to cryptocurrency miners, the world doesn’t have any electrical power headroom and the peak generating capacity of electricity grids too often comes from old, dirty, and nearly obsolete generating facilities.
Electrical Capacity
Third and finally, we don’t have enough neighbourhood electrical capacity to handle a huge influx of electric cars. The oil industry employs roughly 6 million people directly and 10 times that many jobs are created indirectly. The refineries, gas and oil pipelines, storage tanks and gas stations are all potentially hazardous materials problems depending on how much oil and gas has leaked out over the years. Even if the answer is zero, the equipment would need to be safely cleaned and then scrapped. Industries that depend on oil production ranging from plastics to inexpensive medications and some solvents would largely collapse without oil production. While I’m an electric car fan because they’re a ton of fun to drive and passing gas stations is surprisingly pleasurable, the electric car ecosystem isn’t where it yet needs to be to gain the full benefits of going electric.
Requirements
We need better, safer, more reliable, and greener battery technology. More green energy is needed to charge the cars, and we need a far more robust and powerful grid to handle the added load. We also need a plan to step away from oil more painlessly. Otherwise, the transition will be avoidably much uglier than anticipated.
Conclusion
If we go to electric cars before all these elements are in place, not only will the result minimize the positive impact on climate change that electrics would otherwise provide. But they’ll create a host of other environmental and social problems we are unprepared to deal with. Sometimes it is better not to rush into new technology and instead be more measured in our approach. This is why, for now, a hybrid car may be the more sustainable choice over electric vehicles until we can solve the other aspects of the conversion process to EVs.
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Source: Tech News World
