Nick Moreno Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 April 10th, 2014

The Big Green Lie

A British study found that the production of electric car batteries causes higher emissions than average cars in their lifetime. Owners of an electric car need to drive a minimum of 129,000 km to produce a rescuing amount of CO2. The study found that the mid-size electric car generated 23.1 tonnes of CO2 throughout its life and 24 tonnes of CO2 throughout the life of a same sized average car Comparative Environmental. The process of manufacturing electric car batteries is more damaging to the environment than average car batteries because of the elements used in it. Mining and extracting the materials for an electric car is highly energy intensive. Electricity is provided in different ways. Charging the batteries for an electric car takes energy, which is not always clean. Some cities have electricity provided by coal or oil, causing your electric vehicle actually emit just as much pollution, or even more than, everyday average vehicles. Batteries of electric cars are estimated to need a battery replacement every couple of years. The price of buying new batteries is not cheap and handling the dead batteries is not easy. Recycling the discharged batteries becomes a problem. Some of the elements used in the batteries are not recyclable. Energy still left in the batteries could produce hazards and shocks, making recycling them even more of a problem. Electric cars pose as high of a threat to the environment as your average consumption automobile, before they even hit the road. When you imagine the perks of owning a Toyota Prius, you think about the wonderful fuel economy, emission-free driving, and tax incentives. All of these perks sound like a deal breaker, but we do not stop to think, how are they manufactured any differently than your

traditional internal combustion engine vehicle? "The global warming potential from electric vehicle production is about twice that of conventional vehicles Spak." The process of creating an electric vehicle is highly energy intensive. Copper, nickel, and lithium are abundantly present in the process of manufacturing electric vehicle batteries (Williams). Copper, one of the most used elements in creating these batteries, is mined below the ground in open pits Copper Processing. Copper can be produced as either a primary product or as a co-product of gold, lead, zinc or silver Copper Processing. Smelting is a process used to refine copper Copper Processing. The element is dehydrated and put into a heating system, the minerals are semi melted and layered Copper Processing. The matte layer refers to the iron-copper sulfide mixture which sinks to the bottom Copper Processing. Air, lime, and silica are dumped into a cylindrical vessel in which copper is present, creating blister copper Copper processing. Blown with gases, the copper is charged and finishes as a 99% copper compound. The process of obtaining a main ingredient used for manufacturing electric car batteries is highly energy intensive and non eco-friendly. Lithium, another major component in EV batteries, is majorly produced in the country of Chile. Over the past couple of years, this element has been becoming increasingly more popular than ever before, due to the fact that it has many uses. Lithium products currently power around 90% of laptop computers, more than 60% of mobile phones, military/defense products, NASAs Mars explorer at night, and show a large potential for growth in batterypowered vehicles such as hybrids and plug-ins Quinn. Extracting this element is no walk in the park. To do so, you must pump lithium carbonate water into evaporation ponds, creating a solution Quinn. The solution is then removed of contamination and combined with either lithium carbonate or lithium chloride and sold for use Quinn. If the world wide demand for lithium increases to an amount that cannot be satisfied, we will all get ourselves into a worldwide disaster.

Coal generates 44% of our electricity, and is the single biggest air polluter in the U.S. (Coal vs. Wind). As one of the biggest energy providers in the United States, the need for coal mining is high. The pollutions rates are high, too. There are three ways to mine coal: underground mining, surface mining, and mountaintop removal mining. Room and pillar is a method that is highly used for mining coal underground (How Coal Works). In room and pillar mining, seams of coal are mined partially, leaving large pillars of coal intact to support the overlying layers of rock. Mining by this method creates a network of alternating open spaces and large pillars of coal. When mining in one part of the coal seam has been finished, miners practice retreat mining, extracting as much as possible of the coal in the remaining pillars on the way out, while the roof of the seam begins to collapse behind them (How Coal Works). Underground mining requires the use of extremely powerful machinery. When taking the production of these machines into consideration, and how energy intensive it was to make them, how could we possibly say that EVs are environmentally friendly? Strip mining, another method to extract coal, calls for clearing vegetation and soil from a surface and removing the layer of rock underneath. The coal is revealed and removed in strips and moved by conveyor belt or truck to its final destination (How Coal Works). After the process is complete, the law states that the surface must have replanted vegetation, but the amount of restored land is significantly lower than the amount of newly mined land (How Coal Works). Mountaintop removal mining, a newly used process to mine coal, is the most environmentally harmful process to mine coal of all. Currently practiced in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, this method requires stripping all trees from the mountaintop and then blasting away the top several hundred feet with explosives (How Coal Works). Aftermath debris are dumped on the streams and land that are alongside the mining site, destructing the nature. Mountaintop removal mining has damaged or destroyed approximately 1,200 miles of streams, destroyed forests on some 300 square miles of land, disrupted drinking water supplies,

flooded communities, and destroyed wildlife habitat (Chhotray). The expenses that come with mountaintop removal mining are loss of ecosystems, risk of local runoff, contamination of underground water sources, and deadly accidents (How Coal Works). Mountaintop removal severely affects the health of Appalachian residents due to the heavy explosives used to extract the coal, as well as the coal itself. Coal contains harmful toxins such as arsenic, fluorine, selenium, and mercury. The most considerable problem associated with human health is contamination in the water supply (Chhotray). Heavy duty mining trucks have to be used during this process, and the manufacturing and gasoline that they go through are not beneficial to the environment. In Kentucky, 50 residents have been killed and over 500 injured in the last five years by overloaded coal trucks (Chhotray). With the harmful mining that one of the most used electricity sources goes through, electric vehicles cannot possibly be helpful to the environment because of their manufacturing process. Electric vehicles require energy to charge their batteries. Almost 50% of energy in the United States comes from coal (Emissions from Hybrid) EVs and PHEVs running only on electricity have zero tailpipe emissions, but emissions may be produced by the source of electrical power, such as a power plant (Emissions from Hybrid). Electric vehicles come from manufacturing plants, to car dealerships, to homes. From the beginning stages to the ending stages, electric vehicles require power the whole time. With half of the United States energy coming from coal, the environmentally destructive mining process is never ending. Most cars take a long time to recharge their batteries. Tesla Motors' Model S can recharge in 45 minutes, but most electric cars right now take hours to charge. You can't drive the car while the batteries are charging usually, so your car will be out of commission while it is plugged in (Advantages and Disadvantages). Electric cars do not have very long driving capabilities. You will have to charge their batteries quite often to be safe. All of the energy you are putting towards running the vehicle is environmentally harmful. The background of electric cars and how they change their counter products, the eco friendly image, they are advertised to have. Electric vehicles

pollute the environment just as much as, or even more than, average internal combustion vehicles. Dead electric vehicle battery recycling poses a threat to human life. Chemicals and elements left in the batteries can cause hazardous shocks. Owners of electric vehicles are expected to have to change batteries a few times during owning an electric car. If recycling these batteries is an environmental problem, how could the car itself possibly be green? The item is not green if the recycling is not green. In future technology, battery recycling will be an easier and less environmentally harmful process, but our environment is not getting any less polluted now. The longer it takes for technology to catch up with our ideas, the more polluted the planet gets. At some point, our world will be so polluted because we thought we could better it, that there is no chance in replenishing it. The environment affects human life, and if our world does not have a clean and healthy environment, future generations will not have the chance to live as long as past generations. The quality of life will diminish and our damages to the environment will catch up with us. Electric vehicles should not be manufactured until technology is advanced enough that the process of making these vehicles is not harmful to the environment like it is now. Mining for ingredients, manufacturing, and using electric vehicles daily, damages the environment. One of the most energy intensive processes, mining, is not only used to get the ingredients to make the car, but also to power the machines and equipment that make the car. Electric vehicles are looked at as the savior of this century. They are said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the environment and save money for owners, in the long run. Most consumers that purchase electric vehicles do not think about doing their research on the manufacturing process that comes with the vehicles. The idea of these vehicles is wonderful, but our current technology is not yet up to par, therefore making these vehicles non-beneficial to the environment and even more harmful then their competitors.

Works Cited "5 Copper Processing." Copper Processing. Istc.illinois.edu, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

"Advantages and Disadvantages of Electric Cars." CarsDirect. Carsdirect.com, Inc., 8 Jan. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

Chootray, Shilpi. "Mountaintop Removal: Effects on Human Health and the Environment." Law.sc.edu., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://law.sc.edu/environmental/papers/200841/eas/chhotray.pdf>.

"Coal vs Wind." Ucsusa.org. Union of Concerned Scientists, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c01.html>.

Hawkins, T. R., Singh, B., Majeau-Bettez, G. and Strmman, A. H. (2013), Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 17: 5364. Doi: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x

"How Coal Works." Ucsusa.org. Union of Concerned Scientists, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/how-coalworks.html#Underground_Mining>.

Quinn, William. "Lithium Mining." Greeniacs.com. Greenaic, 02 Dec. 2010. Web. <http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Energy/Lithium-Mining.html>.

Spak, Kevin. "Study: Electric Cars Hurt the Environment." Newser. Newser, LLC, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.newser.com/story/155284/study-electric-cars-hurt-theenvironment.html>.

Williams, Laura. "Negative Environmental Impacts of Hybrid Vehicles." LoveToKnow. LoveToKnow Corp., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Hybrid_Vehicles_Negative_Environmental_Impact>.