Bigger, more advanced batteries require more materials. Specifically, things like copper, iron, nickel, aluminum, cobalt, graphite, lithium and manganese.
All of these have to be mined from the ground and then refined, which by most accounts is not a “green” process. This means that because EVs require those batteries, making an EV is a dirtier process than making a gas-powered vehicle.
According to a Congressional report that brought together research comparing EVs and gas-powered videos, even though EVs don’t start off very green, they eventually do better than gas-powered vehicles.
Specifically, over the life of a battery, they will release fewer volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and black carbon. They will, however, release more fine particulate matter and sulfur oxides.
Then there’s the fact that batteries have a limited life span.
Alexis Georgeson, vice president of communications and government relations at Redwood Materials, a Nevada-based company working to recycle lithium batteries, said the future is promising.
“One of the things that’s just really especially wonderful about lithium-ion batteries is that the materials inside of them can be recycled almost infinitely,” Georgeson said. “So I can take a lithium-ion battery pack, whether it’s from an electric vehicle, or even if it’s you know, from something like an iPhone, and I can infinitely recycle that down to its most basic elements.”
Georgeson said Redwood Materials is able to recycle more than 90% of the materials in lithium batteries.
The company expects batteries from the first EVs will start needing to be recycled en masse in five to 10 years.
Electric vehicles not only pose a threat to the gas and oil industry, but also to the ethanol industry.
Right now, Iowa produces more than four million gallons of ethanol each year. The industry supports Iowa farmers’ bottom line, and supplies hundreds of jobs.
Monte Shaw with the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said he isn’t anti-EV, he just wants ethanol producers and supporters to have a seat at the table when it comes to alternative fuel transportation discussions.
“The fact of the matter is that the world’s transportation system is complex,” Shaw said. “And in most things in life, there is not a silver bullet. We need to have competition and you need to have different technologies with that. And so we don’t support the calls for the EV-only movements.”
Full story: https://www.weareiowa.com/article/travel/the-future-is-electric-ev-cars-tesla-charging-stations-technology-in-iowa-midamerican-energy-dmacc-chevy-nissan/524-3be33953-f292-4397-80a7-8ef1976f4e37
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