When do electric vehicles become cleaner than gasoline cars?

[anonymous-user]

Smoggy XJR said:

Fastlane said:

Smoggy XJR said:

And the environmental damage caused by the mining of rare earth elements?

You mean like the cobalt that has been used in petrol production for years?

I have no idea. I don't deal in whataboutery.

However,

https://earth.org/rare-earth-mining-has-devastated...

Indeed, some rare earth mining is poorly controlled and is not carried out under the highest environmentally appropriate techniques or controls.

BUT,

For every single "bad" rare earth element mine (which also supplies the rare earths for ICE cars btw) there are hundreds, and hundreds of devistating events as a result of fossil fuel extraction, transportation and refining, before we get anywhere near the actual burning of those fuels by the end user and pollution and potential irreversable effect on our climate that we know know occurs.

For example, this was, the gulf of mexico just yesterday:



ocean_on_fire


Piper alpha, deepwater horizon, exxon valdiz, Amoco Cadiz, Castillo de Bellver, Kolva River, Atlantic Empress, the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

So in anyway suggest that there is ANY equivalency between the environmental damage caused by the extraction of completely recyclable and non-consumed rare earth elements as opposed to the impact of just the extraction and transport of fossil fuels is not just eroneous, but actually ridicuolous.

And lets not forget, when it all goes fine, and there is no accident or spill, the fossil fuel is then irreversably burned and pollutes our planet directly, each and every time........

[rscott]

The Spruce Goose said:

annodomini2 said:

Power stations are much more thermally efficient than an ICE engine

~60% Vs ~25%

So not ideal, but an improvement

no ones is disagreeing with that, but people have to understand electricity isn't made from rainbows, fossil duels will be burnt for at least the next 25 years to provide electricity.

Electric cars are the future but the real solution is clean electricity at the start.

Most people understand we need to clean up the supply too.
The great thing is that as the grid improves, so does the 'greeness' of an EV, which are already better than an ICE after a relatively short time.

As demand for petrol drops, so will the massive amount of electricity used for refining it, which helps offset the charging requirements of EVs.

[JonnyVTEC]

The Spruce Goose said:

How does that work with circa 50% of Uk electricity supplied by Fossil fuels?

13 fossil powered plants on the books as well, to meet potential leccy demand.

So it’s atleast half better then… Most low cost tarriff incentives overnight charging which means the cars are just sucking up that wind power excess on many nights. Unlike that roast beef dinner we all have conscious free?

[Carlososos]

Smoggy XJR said:

And the environmental damage caused by the mining of rare earth elements?

Granted there is damage from mining but it’s many many many times less damaging than the current routine. Batteries ain’t perfect but it’s much closer to it than oil burning.

[Carlososos]

The Spruce Goose said:

Carlososos said:

It’s an argument that has been answered over and over. Electric good burning bad.

How does that work with circa 50% of Uk electricity supplied by Fossil fuels?

13 fossil powered plants on the books as well, to meet potential leccy demand.

You answered your own question “how does it work that electric good burning bad”. Only 50% of electricity supplied by fossil fuels. How much fossil fuel in your car has been supplied by renewables?

[Carlososos]

The Spruce Goose said:

ruggedscotty said:

quite easy to explain this one....

100,000 cars burning hydrocarbons... a lot less efficient than one power station charging those cars...

no emission in the immediate locale of the car leading to cleaner air for all...

That one power station having exhaust treatment would be a lot easier to maintain than 100,000 emissions control equpment fitted to cars.

''Electric good burning bad,'' was the statement.

As i pointed out the national grid is currently 50% fossil fuels, so burning, bad, yet will be providing to electric cars. Surely clean electricity is better first that have electric cars?

It seems like the chicken before the egg and realistically people seem to think electric cars are carbon neutral or negative, yet don't really understand where the actual power is coming from...

Whichever way you cut it or try and spin it burning is bad. We don’t need to do it and everyone agrees it’s a terrible idea going forward. Even if the whole grid was 100% fossil powered it’ll still be better because with economies of scale etc. IIRC power stations around 50 - 60% efficient and cars around 25 - 35%.

[Carlososos]

The Spruce Goose said:

annodomini2 said:

Power stations are much more thermally efficient than an ICE engine

~60% Vs ~25%

So not ideal, but an improvement

no ones is disagreeing with that, but people have to understand electricity isn't made from rainbows, fossil duels will be burnt for at least the next 25 years to provide electricity.

Electric cars are the future but the real solution is clean electricity at the start.

Nobody is going to demolish the world to start a clean fresh so we are having to try and do the best with what we have while transitioning.

[GT911]

Smoggy XJR said:

I have no idea.

I quoted the relevant fact from your post.

Can you explain which rare earth materials, and in what sort of quantities, are used to produce EVs.
Don't forget to also explain how much this exceeds what is normally used in an equivalent ICE car.

[AW111]

GT911 said:

Smoggy XJR said:

I have no idea.

I quoted the relevant fact from your post.

Can you explain which rare earth materials, and in what sort of quantities, are used to produce EVs.
Don't forget to also explain how much this exceeds what is normally used in an equivalent ICE car.

The thing that's normally glosses over is that an ICE car uses lots of high-strength steel alloys in the engine and gearbox.

wiki said:

High-strength low-alloy steel (HSLA) is a type of alloy steel
...
Other alloying elements include up to 2.0% manganese and small quantities of copper, nickel, niobium, nitrogen, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum, titanium, calcium, rare-earth elements, or zirconium.

I don't know the amount by weight, but it's not just the catalytic converter that has exotic minerals & rare earths in it.

[alabbasi]

6 year assuming we're talking about a new car purchase. If you're buying a 10 year old diesel with 100k miles for 5,000 and probably drive it another 200k miles?
Every battery powered device that I've owned requires a new battery every few years, I'm still skeptical about the longevity.
I'm also wondering how the government is going to get their tax revenue once electric becomes mainstream.

[GT911]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Here is the list of rare earth elements.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element

No sign of Lithium on that list…

Rare earths are used in all sorts of applications including domestic, industrial, aerospace, energy and yes automotive. They are used in power supplies, generators, motors, actuators, etc.

What an EV does of course have is one or more propulsion motors, these are either not permanently excited, or they use a small quantity of permanent magnets on the rotor.

However, all cars have lots or electric motors/actuators for the ventilation system, window lifts, seat movement, door locks, etc.

Since Smoggy originally made the point about rare earth mining maybe he should also back that that up with why it is a specific issue with EVs.

[rscott]

alabbasi said:

6 year assuming we're talking about a new car purchase. If you're buying a 10 year old diesel with 100k miles for 5,000 and probably drive it another 200k miles?
Every battery powered device that I've owned requires a new battery every few years, I'm still skeptical about the longevity.
I'm also wondering how the government is going to get their tax revenue once electric becomes mainstream.

Depends on the electricity source mix. Polestar gave figures comparing the Polestar 2 with the equivalent Volvo and it can be as low as 27,000 miles - https://www.polestar.com/uk/sustainability/transpa...

As for battery life, there's plenty of data already out there. Early Leafs don't have great life, because the battery packs have limited thermal management, but others are doing fine at 100,000 miles.
There's already a thriving industry refreshing Leaf batteries - just replacing the failed cells.

[AW111]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I was mistaken in quoting HSLA - that's bodywork.

Steel used in cranks, conrods, gears etc. are more "traditional' chrome-moly alloys, which are about 4-5% alloying material.

That adds up to quite a bit in an ICE and 6/7/8/9 speed gearbox.


Nickel, Chromium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Sulfur, Phosphorous, Vanadium : how much of that is stuff that's mined in an "unsuitable" way, I can't say.

[GT911]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

The main point I was making is that Lithium and Cobalt are not rare earth elements.

The current trend for EV traction motors appears to be a hybrid permanent magnet/synchronous reluctance motor design that uses a small quantity of magnets embedded internally in the rotor, rather than surface-mount as seen on earlier designs.

These motors would use a couple of hundred grams of Neodymium/Dysprosium. More than 85% of that will be Neodymium.

Neodymium is currently mined at over 100,000 tons per annum, current EV production rates are likely consuming less than 1% of all Neodymium production for the traction motor/s.