It is becoming steadily easier to make a good case against the continued mass production and use of gasoline-powered Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (ICEVs) in today’s world. According to the Department of Energy, ICEVs are the source of approximately half of the air pollution produced in the United States. Most would agree that the pollutants released by these vehicles, such as oxides of sulphur, carbon, and nitrogen, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter, are detrimental to the future of our environment and our current standard of living.
The discussion enters a gray area however, when talk of solutions come into play. Among the possible alternatives to gasoline-powered ICEVs, which include ethanol, biodiesel, and hydrogen, Battery-powered Electric Vehicles (BEVs) seem to be at the forefront of the race to curb a century-old thirst for gasoline. At a glance, the BEV seems to be the perfect challenger: clean, quiet, with even the ability to provide greater torque from a stopped position, which should appeal to environmentally conscious street racer types. The issue is not so cut and dried though; because the feel-good commercials for BEVs such as the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius don’t necessarily tell the whole story. Critics of BEV development point to flaws such as lack of long range capabilities, frequent recharging requirements, overstressing of the electric grid, and high prices. Likely the greatest weapon in the naysayer’s arsenal is the heart of the concept itself, the battery on which the BEV ultimately depends. These batteries are, by necessity, manufactured using metals such as copper, aluminum, gold and tin, some of which are quite rare, and can also be very toxic when released into the environment following disposal of the battery. Although battery lifetime is improving with the development of new technologies, it could still be considered as inadequate, with the need for relatively frequent replacement exposing the lack of efficient recycling and disposal techniques available. Furthermore, a large fraction of both the production and disposal of these batteries takes place in foreign countries. This means that the energy and environmental cost of shipping these heavy units back and forth across the ocean could possibly counteract their benefits.
In order to answer some of these questions, the Technology and Society Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology recently performed a comprehensive life cycle analysis (LCA) of the contribution of lithium-ion batteries to the environmental impact of BEVs. LCA is a method designed to assess potential environmental impact caused by products and processes which aims to quantify energy and material flow over all stages of a product’s lifetime. The study focused on lithium-ion batteries because they are the most prevalent in the latest electric vehicles, due to their low maintenance requirements and the light weight and superior electrochemical potential of lithium. The findings of the study were conclusive: the impact of the lithium-ion battery used in a BEV is relatively small. Lithium itself, although technically considered a scarce metal, can be extracted from seawater with a minimal amount of process energy; it is also only used in very small amounts in the battery and can be almost completely recycled. More environmentally taxing are the metals used in the anode and cathode of the battery, as well as the process energy required for fabrication. So, can we conclude that BEVs are environmentally sustainable or not? Ultimately, the answer depends on the source of electricity. If the power for a BEV originates from sources of which 50% or greater are fossil fuel based, then the environmental impact is estimated to be roughly equal to that of a small, efficient diesel fuelled ICEV. Taking this into account, and considering that both BEV and ICEV technologies are improving rapidly, one might argue that electric vehicles offer no advantage. However, the fact that the renewable energy industry is slowly gaining momentum, while peak oil is less than a decade away by the most optimistic predictions, means that the ICEV will soon be forced into oblivion by fuel scarcity, like it or not. In conclusion, don’t be shocked if you begin to see a rapid increase in electric vehicles on the road over the next few years-they could just be the spark that will start a transportation revolution!
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