Electric Vehicles: Boon or a Bane?

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EVs are green and getting greener is what we believe, or perhaps what we have been made to believe. But, how green is your electric car is a question that has been hovering over us off lately and the very premise of it has made us scratch our heads.

Slated as zero-emission vehicles, EVs are at the frontier of next-generation mobility. A powerful baton in the world's battle to beat global warming, and though EVs seem to be a viable solution to fight climate change, critics have been investigating the ‘clean’?label attached to them. From manufacturing concerns to battery power sources as well as overall autonomy, EVs have been under the eye of the sceptics.?

Now that we are on the cusp of a major transition and the number of deliberations and the misinformation that has caused ripples in the waters, the reality behind the efficiency of electric vehicles has become somewhat hazy - so just how clean are these vehicles?

Pressing Concerns

Battery Production Toxicity

By and large, the biggest squabble put across the clean image of EVs is the pollution caused by the manufacturing process of their batteries. Veritably speaking there is a range of rare earth metals that make up the composition of the battery, and their extraction and manipulation?can contribute?to carbon emissions. For real, EVs rely on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to run and the process of making those batteries — from using mining raw materials like cobalt and lithium to production in gigafactories and transportation — is energy-intensive, and one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions from EVs today.

The mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, manganese, and indispensable raw materials required in the battery manufacturing process are humongous energy guzzlers. In fact, manufacturing an electric car itself needs twice the amount of energy required to manufacture a regular car. Reason? The batteries.?Battery manufacturing with contemporary technology requires 350 to?650 Megajoule of energy per kWh, as per a study led by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.

With a surge in electric vehicles, the demand for minerals powering its batteries will increase and the brunt will be borne by the environment and communities in and around those mining reserves.

Electricity Sources

Electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions. Generating the electricity used to charge EVs, however, creates carbon pollution. The amount differs widely based on how local power is generated, e.g., using coal or natural gas, which emits carbon pollution, versus renewable resources like wind or solar, which do not. Even accounting for these electricity emissions, research shows that an EV is typically responsible for lower levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) than an average new gasoline car.?

Even though electric cars do not emit much detrimental and climate-damaging greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxide, they might run on electricity produced by burning dirty fossil fuels, which actually takes away its climate benefits. The overall carbon footprint of a battery-powered EV is the same as that of a conventional car powered by a combustion engine, regardless of the size. Though EVs emit less while driving on the streets, a large amount of CO2 is emitted by power plants that charge electric cars.?

Solutions for Clean Energy

Having said that, solutions to make electric cars greener and more eco-friendly, and?sustainable?are being continuously worked on. And although there is room for improvement, we have also seen that electric cars, as they are today, are already, in general, more eco-friendly along their?lifecycle?than conventional fossil fuel cars, especially if they are powered with clean electricity.

Fortunately, there are many impending technologies and solutions unfolding like sodium batteries, that aid decentralised adoption, and growth – especially for countries like India and others who are looking to go big with electric vehicles.

Our Hon’ble PM listed increasing the contribution of electricity to decarbonise mobility and achieving the renewables target of 450 gigawatts as one of the seven key drivers of India’s energy map. India aims to have 175 GW of installed Renewable Energy (RE) capacity by 2022, and up to 450 GW by 2030. The country’s current weighted average emission factor for the national grid has been nearly consistent over the past few years at 0.82 tCO2?/ MWh (as of 2018-19). This denotes that EVs charged with India’s electricity grid emit lower lifecycle emissions already. As coal power capacity continues to shrink and the share of renewables increases, India’s grid emission factor is expected to fall through the decade as well, in turn resulting in gradually decreasing overall EV emissions.

Furthermore, the recent framework proposed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) on the switch to Market-Based Economic Despatch (MBED) of electricity and power scheduling is poised to shift to national merit order discovered on markets—which is a system that prioritizes the dispatch of the cheapest power first. This will help expand our renewable energy (RE) procurement (including hybrid RE stations) on priority and increase their share in the national power mix. Thus, EVs result in a reduction of lifecycle CO2?emissions even with the current Indian grid. Policy and market interventions should focus on accelerating EV adoption rather than waiting for the power grid itself to become green.

Recycling is Key

As earlier generations of electric vehicles start to reach the end of their lives, preventing a pileup of spent batteries looms as a challenge. Most of today’s electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, which can store more energy in the same space than older, more commonly-used lead-acid battery technology.

Experts?have pointed out that spent batteries contain valuable metals and other materials that can be recovered and reused. Depending on the process used, battery recycling can also use large amounts of water or emit air pollutants. The percentage of lithium batteries being recycled is very low, but with time and innovation, that’s going to increase. Research into the use of second-hand batteries is looking at ways to reuse batteries in new technologies such as electricity storage.?

The Future Of Transport

With electrical vehicles already producing fewer emissions throughout their lifetime regardless of the energy source, it shows that EVs are indeed the vehicle of the future. Car manufacturers are also?accepting?the fact that electric cars are less polluting and producing more?EVs will help reduce total carbon emissions.?Electric vehicles as they currently stand are far less polluting than their combustion engine counterparts.?

As technology becomes more mainstream, it is likely to become even more efficient and sustainable. Electric vehicles are not a panacea but combined with greater deployment of renewables and the decarbonization of the electricity grid they offer a pathway to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Battery technology has upgraded tremendously and combined with manufacturing automation, emissions are being brought under control.