Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck
There's not one credible study that says that. As of 2017, your "grid" remains >30% coal fueled and >30% natural gas fueled. More importantly, secondary power in the US is almost entirely fossil fuel so the marginal cost of added EVs to the grid are almost pure GHG generating.
The whole idea that EVs are environmentally friendly is a hoax stirred in a nice big jug of kool-aid. Make no mistake, ICE engines are not environmentally friendly either, but the investment in EVs is not the cure ... not even close.
We're in desperate need of a proper, peer reviewed, academic study on the environmental costs of EV versus ICE. From lithium mining to battery disposal to the environmental impact of charging loads. There are none and it's shocking to see governments buy into this without any idea whether they are making things better or worse.
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I'm not near my PC to pull this up, but you can pretty easily do the math on greenhouse gas emission. The fact that a coal fire plant and a car both burn fossil fuels does not make them equal. Power plants are considerably more efficient than a car in terms of emissions per power output. Somewhere in the ballpark of 1/2 for coal/gasoline for CO2 emissions.
In terms of lithium mining and recycling, this is something else that, as you said, needs a bit more study. That said, I really doubt that material collection and recycling comes close to what our coal plants are expelling. They're also something we're improving upon. So as I said before, they're getting 'greener' while the ICE isn't (significantly)
Investment greener energy and electric vehicles is absolutely a value added enterprise.
When I get back to work on Monday, I'll try to pull up some good studies to post. For the record. I'm an electrical engineer in the power industry. I work with generation and distribution. This is a constant discussion in my industry.