WRD 110 Podcast Final

Electric cars are often seen as the environmentally friendly option, but they actually produce more emissions than people realize. The production of the batteries and the extraction of the metals used in them have negative environmental impacts. The factories that produce these batteries also rely heavily on fossil fuels. Additionally, the electricity used to charge electric cars often comes from power grids fueled by non-renewable resources, releasing emissions into the atmosphere. To truly be green, a shift to renewable energy sources is necessary. While there is a movement towards electric cars, there are still challenges to overcome. Think of a polar bear, beautiful and clean in their presence, fuzzy and nice looking, almost as if you could walk up to it and give it a hug, only to realize that they are not what you think. That they are the predators in the top of the food chain, something you do not want to cross. The same concept of unforeseen aspects are commonly seen in the automobile progression. My name is Jackson Musgrove and welcome back to my podcast where today we will be discussing electric cars. Known for their sleek design, curb noise, and zero emissions, but is this statement really true? Many believe that electric cars give off no emissions and that they are the perfect vehicle for the environment. However, they are not as green as one would think. Most of the general population sees electric cars as how they are marketed, the ideal vehicle for controlling the world's climate and reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Part of this statement is valid, as electric cars are not better than gas-powered cars in some respects, but they could be better. They are not as green as many people believe them to be. Owing to the multiple stages of development, the need for unique materials, and the necessity of power, electric cars' life still produces more emissions than one might expect. First, I want to discuss what makes these electric cars different from your typical gas-powered car that you guys see every day on the road, is that they are powered by an electric motor, composed of, most likely, a lithium-ion battery. To charge it, you just plug it into an electrical outlet. Recharge time depends on the size of the car's battery and the power source it's plugged into. A typical household outlet will fully recharge a battery in between 6 and 16 hours, depending on the car. Though quiet, it will surprise you with the power these electric cars hold. Now I would like to welcome Byron Hammer to the podcast. He's an owner of an electric car and will be able to share the differences from a first-hand view. I mean, aside from the fact that they're battery-powered motors, I mean, one of the differences is, and I guess maybe the hardest thing to get used to, is the fact that you're not feeling a motor, a naturally aspirated gas motor. You can feel when it's on. You can feel when you're accelerating. In an EV motor, you don't necessarily feel it like you do with the same traditional gas engine. So aspects seen within the electric car, such as the limited to no tailpipe emissions from the vehicle itself, are some of the reasons why many environmentalists are happy with the rise of electric cars. Tailpipe emissions are the most upfront thing someone finds out when discussing an electric car, and all electric cars don't have any tailpipe emissions. Environmental gas-powered vehicles have the largest amount, with 74% of all the total emissions from a gas-powered car's life cycle coming from the tailpipe. Many people tend to disregard the emissions produced by the factory during the creation of the car and batteries. Because of the fact that combustion engines create so much CO2 from the tailpipe, it balances out the more minor emissions created by building these combustion engine vehicles. However, this can also be reversed, as the electric car produces more emissions from the creation, but does not release any while driving. Now I want to ask before I get into more detail about where electric car emissions come from. What is your stance on the emissions caused by vehicles? Are you worried? And, I mean, do you think electric cars are the answer to this? I don't think that they're the answer to it. I don't. Look, am I concerned about green gas emissions? Yes. I'm definitely concerned, like everyone should be. Do automobiles play a good part in that? Yes. They play a large role in that. I don't think that that's the only issue, I think. I think in eliminating the harmful effects, in eliminating all the ways that we're harming the planet, I don't think that automobiles are the worst, in my opinion. Look, do I think EVs are a step in the right direction? I've said that a couple times now. I absolutely do. But I don't think they're the solution to everything. It's just a step in the right direction. Yeah, I agree. And I think that people need to understand that that is not the solution yet. And to get what we ultimately want, the technology needs to keep improving. At the moment, the resources used within the electric car's battery are another one in significant downsides to the production and the greenness of the electrical vehicle. Issues with the lithium-ion battery used today's batteries include the limited amount of metals necessary for the creation of the battery and the pollution from mining for these special metals. The process by which the metals are extracted from the earth is labor-intensive and detrimental to the environment. Typically, cobalt, nickel, and lithium are metals in the lithium-ion batteries. The demand for them is also increasing fast with the increasing number of electrical vehicles, leading to a possible risk for bottleneck effects and supply availability in a short-term perspective. This means that because of the spike in interest in the electrical vehicles, the necessity for these batteries is rapidly rising, causing the already limited amount of metals to decrease further. The extraction of these metals also does not come easy because the extraction of cobalt and nickel from ore causes relatively high environmental damage costs and can contaminate the air and soil around it. This causes higher pollution rates, which shows that the pollution does not only come from the car's tailpipes, but from the processes necessary for the car to begin running. Not only are the metals used to make up the battery of an electrical vehicle detrimental to the environment, but the process by which the battery is made is also destructive. They're made in factories called gigafactories and are powered mainly by fossil fuels. They're the leading factor of CO2 pollution in the atmosphere. However, this depends on where the factory is located and what kind of energy that region uses. The issue is that 93 gigafactories make lithium-ion batteries in China, which heavily rely on fossil fuels. One study found that producing electric vehicles leads to significantly more emissions than producing petrol cars. Depending on the country of production, that's between 30% to 40% extra in production emissions, mostly from the artillery production. Chinese factories tend to get most of their energy from the power grids fueled by fossil fuels due to a trend that happened nearly 10 years ago. Along with the makeup of the car letting off plenty of emissions, there are another source that can let off just as much, this being the energy source. In the United States and all around the world, the energy used for almost everything in our daily lives comes from a power grid, and in most instances, this power grid is fueled by non-renewable resources that release immense amounts of emissions into the atmosphere. Thus, electric cars are being powered with energy from burning fossil fuels, which is still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, not from the tailpipe, but from some distant power plant. The necessity for new, renewable energy in this world's power grid is what becomes the issue with these seemingly green vehicles. Just because solid fossil fuels are not powering the car, the power that the car relies on from all of the charging stations is the same power plants that create the vehicles and tend to let off tons of CO2, comparable to the tailpipe emissions of your typical combustion engine. This is why I think the change from power plants running off fossil fuels to the power grid running off energy such as wind or water could be the change that needs to happen to call these vehicles green. As discussed in the article, How Much Emissions Do Electric Cars Produce?, there are ways this can be offset. Depending on the state, all electric vehicles can rely on low-emission renewable sources of electricity or high-emission fossil fuel sources. This could be the case in some circumstances, which use different energy sources than most of the world. In areas that use things such as wind or water, the electric car's carbon footprint is reduced dramatically, as every step other than the production of the battery releases a reduced amount of CO2. Stated in an article published by USA Facts, the issue is that, in 2020, power plants that burned coal, natural gas, and petroleum fuels were the source of about 62% of total US electricity generation, but they accounted for 99% of US electricity-related CO2 emissions. Unless the power plants change their ways of power production, most electric vehicles will continue to run on fossil fuels. Now that the statistics on electric cars is out of the way, I want to ask you, what do you think electric cars will look like in the future? How long? Just in the future. Do you think they're going to take over? Yeah, I think from a regulatory perspective, I think that car manufacturers, if they're not already, are being forced to produce EV cars. I think that there's a strong movement out there that suggests that they want to produce EV cars, but I'm of the opinion that I think behind the scenes that they're being forced to. I also feel like they're smart in doing so, because that's the direction it seems to be going. I think there's more and more—Tesla's working on a tractor-trailer to do driverless cargo delivery and so on and so forth, and next will be airplanes. In the future, unfortunately, I see the combustible engine coming to an end. Will that be in my lifetime? Hopefully not. Do you think that's a good thing? That's really what this whole thing is about. Do you think the switch to electric cars is really that much better for the environment? I'm going to say, could we make combustible engines cleaner? Could we double down and invest in making combustible engines cleaner? I'm a car guy. I've said that a couple times. I like nothing more than a fast, powerful, high-output sports car. To me, I'm an enthusiast. That's what I'm into. And so, no, it kind of hurts to know that potentially one day the combustible engine could be gone. Who knows? Can somebody come up with a cleaner way to manufacture—somebody to come up to manufacture a cleaner combustible engine, I'd rather see that as an option, too. Look, I don't think that it's a one-size-fits-all type of scenario. It never has been. I hope that it never is. Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you said. These quick and quiet vehicles hold the ability to compete with the forever-standing number one in the car industry now. But at what cost? The number of things disregarded from electric cars that boost their appeal to customers seems to allow for competition. The emissions let off in the multiple stages of creation are massively overlooked by many and advertised by none of the electrical vehicle manufacturers. These facts hidden from the consumers range from the extraction of precious metals to the production of the battery in various Chinese gigafactories. Every step of the way, emissions are being produced one way or another. Because of the stages in developing the battery and the power needed to keep the car going, electric vehicles are not as green as one would think. The emissions left off in the multiple stages of an electric vehicle's life match the amount saved due to no tailpipe emissions, arguably making them no better than their counterparts. The electric car has the potential to transform the way we see transportation today. But because of the emissions created during extraction, battery production, and energy production, they have not quite lived up to what they claim to be. Thank you for tuning in to episode 12 of The Jackson Show, and I hope to see you all next week.