Summary of "Electric vehicles are supposed to be green, but the truth is a bit murkier"
Power for electric vehicles comes from a variety of places, and North American electricity is mostly generated through some kind of greenhouse emissions. Because of this, while an electric vehicle may run on electricity, that electricity may have been generated through some kind of emissions. Canada has pledged to eliminate coal-burning plants by 2030, but the US has made no such pledge. That being said, charging an electric vehicle still generally generates less than half the carbon emissions that a gas-powered vehicle does.
But before an electric vehicle is even sold, it has a carbon footprint. Mining any kind of materials for a vehicle produces carbon, but the battery manufacturing process has a massive carbon footprint. Battery mining for lithium has been connected to lots of environmental harm in recent years. Mining efforts often require lots of energy, sometimes from carbon-emitting machinery. Lithium demand is expected to triple by this year.
The batteries in electric vehicles don’t last forever, but they can have valuable resource reuse opportunities. If reuse is considered in the design of the batteries, they could be used in new applications including remanufacturing cells into batteries for new electric vehicles. They could also be used in the energy grid and mobile energy storage. It is crucial that investment is made into the right way to do electric vehicles
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