How/can we protect the Earth when we need a car?

Say that you live in a society that aims to keep its economy going; and people get around by automobiles.

            And you—you aim to minimize your ecological impacts.

Manufacturers have figured out that “zero-emitting,” “green,” “clean” and “carbon-neutral” make great marketing terms, especially since no agency has standards on their use. Your federal government gives billions of dollars toward electric vehicles (EVs), their extraction demands, their transistors, their chargers. Your state government has begun moving toward elimination of new gas-powered vehicles and mandates for electric vehicles.

Marketers say that EVs do not emit carbon dioxide while they operate. But isn’t that like measuring an elephant’s weight by the tip of its tail?

Your mechanic (who’s 42 years older than your 1996-model car) can’t find a smooth idler pulley for your steering wheel’s serpentine belt.

            What to do.

Cradle-to-grave impacts

Starting with their computers, I researched automobiles’ ecological impacts. To provide infotainment, power steering, power braking, etcetera, modern cars can have 100 or more computers. The vast majority (65% or more) of a computer’s lifetime energy use, emissions and toxic waste occur during manufacturing.

One modern car’s computers can use 1,400 to 3,000 semiconductor chips. Semiconductors are made from electronic-grade silicon. Silicon is not found in nature in pure form. Pure silicon starts by shipping quartz, a pure carbon (like petroleum coke, from the Tar Sands) and dense wood to a smelter that keeps at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit (1649 Celsius) for six or seven years at a time. This first smelter makes 98% pure silicon. To get electronic-grade silicon, you’ve got three more refineries to go.

Since solar PVs and industrial wind turbines provide only intermittent power, they cannot maintain 3000 degrees Fahrenheit 24/7. Smelters and refineries are powered by coal, natural gas, nuclear and/or hydro power.

Chemicals & water

To make transistors electrically conductive, they’re “doped” with lots of chemicals and rinsed, after each application, with ultra-pure water. Every factory guzzles millions of gallons of water per day—water that’s often taken from farmers and returned toxic to waterways. Manufacturing transistors harms workers and wildlife.

Extractions

New cars also use copper, gold, graphite, lithium, nickel, manganese, quartz, silver, tin—and much more. Ores need smelting and refining. Tires need rubber.

EV batteries use lithium. Ooof. Do you know about the lithium mining at Thacker Pass, Nevada? Have you heard about the even larger lithium deposit headed for mining at the Oregon-Nevada border?

            Because of its lithium-ion battery, an EV can weigh one or two thousand pounds (454 – 907 kilograms) more than a gas-powered car.

            Because of this extra weight from the battery, EV tires typically  wear out after 13,000 miles—when gas-powered vehicles’ tires typically last 40,000 miles.

            That means a lot more rubber, and a lot more tires sent to dumpsites.  

Shipping

Transporting raw materials to refineries and assembly plants—and the final EV to consumers—requires intercontinental infrastructure: ships powered by ocean-polluting bunker fuel, trucks, roads made of cement and tar, trains, railroads, airplanes, airports. Imagine what goes into manufacturing each of these great vehicles.

Charging

Charging an EV uses enormous energy and overheats nearby transformers. Charging an EV shortens the nearby transformer’s lifespan (typically 30-40 years) to three years. To prevent overheating and explosions, should professional engineers coordinate EV-owners’ charging times within a neighborhood? Should utilities budget for replacing distribution transformers? They’re not cheap.  

            Of course, powering the chargers brings up other issues. Most chargers will get their power from natural gas. If solar PVs or industrial wind facilities power chargers, that hardware will need manufacturing; it’ll need backup from batteries or natural gas or nuclear power or coal.

Electromagnetic Radiation 

A decade ago, I reported that in a hybrid vehicle, a woman with Parkinson’s discovered that her deep brain stimulator shut off every time she braked her car. Whenever the car stopped, its computers signaled the battery to recharge—and emitted magnetic fields that interfered with her medical implant. Yikes.    

Given that since 2001, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has considered magnetic fields "possibly carcinogenic," shouldn’t manufacturers design vehicles that minimize passengers’ exposure to electromagnetic radiation? People spend considerable time in cars; and health risks increase with the duration of exposure. For manufacturing design guidelines, see Dr. Joel Moskowitz post, Hybrid & Electric Cars: Electromagnetic Radiation Risks.

Surveillance

Electric vehicles record data about where drivers and their passengers go and how long they stay. They can track Internet searches, purchases and voices. Car companies sell this data to corporations. Do all new vehicles track users’ data equally? Besides not buying or riding in a data-tracking car, how/can drivers and passengers avoid surveillance?

Headlight glare

High spec LED headlights produce glare that can temporarily blind other drivers—and compromise road safety risks. According to UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, between the ages of 15 and 65, recovery time from glare increases from 1 to 9 seconds. At 60 miles an hour, a car travels 250 yards in 9 seconds. Call that a dangerous distance for traveling blind. Don’t headlights need standards and regulation?

Fire hazards

It takes 500 to 1000 gallons of water to extinguish a gas-powered car fire. If an EV catches fire, its battery can re-ignite several times—so firefighters must watch it for 24 hours to ensure that the fire is out for good. Extinguishing one EV fire can use more than 30,000 gallons of water—the same used during one average month by the fire department of a Texas city of 100,000 people. Toxins emitted by the battery get into firefighters’ lungs, skin and clothes—and seep into groundwater. Would the Consumer Product Safety Commission create mandatory standards to help prevent EV fires?

Waste

While the vast majority of waste of every industrially-produced item occurs during manufacturing (during mining, smelting, doping, assembly, intercontinental shipping of raw materials, etc.), end-of-life waste is also significant. For example, where do you discard a 1000-pound lithium battery? At the battery’s design stage, would manufacturers plan for its second life—when it can no longer lug a four-ton vehicle, but it could provide power for a household with minimal electricity?

Taking clues

I looked at a few fifteen-year-old two-seater cars. They start at $7500, which is way over budget.

Engineer-friends insist that keeping an old gas-guzzler in good repair is way better for the environment than buying a new one. They talk about William Jevons’s 1861 book, The Coal Question, which explained that efficiency actually increases energy use: whenever a product becomes efficient, its cost goes down, and more people buy it. More consumption starts with more production; and that translates to more energy use, more mining, more chemicals, more water use, more toxic waste.

            If legislators, manufacturers and consumers knew this stuff (which barely pokes a dent in new vehicles), would we let go the idea that EVs make us sustainable? Would we shift our focus to keeping what we have in good repair, to celebrating people who share and use less? Would we redesign communities to make them walkable? Would we strengthen public transportation?

            I have to celebrate my mechanic. He found a used smooth idler pulley at the junkyard, greased it and installed it in my 28-year-old car—for $100.  

Other stories related to EVs

“Worries from a Major Auto Dealer about All Electric Cars,” by Ralph Nader, November 13, 2023.

Nate Hagens, “NOT for Sale,” January 30, 2023.

“Who’s in charge of EV chargers?” by Katie Singer, August 2, 2023.

“Digital enlightenment,” by Katie Singer, May 2023.

Others stories from the technosphere

“A New Kind of AI Copy Can Fully Replicate Famous People. The Law is Powerless,” by Mohar Chatterjee, Politico, 12.30.23.

            “Autism Tsunami: The Impact of Rising Prevalence on the Societal Cost of Autism in the United States,” by Mark Blaxill, Toby Rogers and Cynthia Nevison, Science, Public Health Policy and the Law, December, 2023. As long as root causes are not addressed, the costs of autism spectrum disorder will reach $589 billion per year by 2030, $1.36 trillion per year by 2040 and $5.54 trillion per year by 2060. See my report, “Calming behavior in children with autism and ADD: a free, EMR-reduction protocol.”

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