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Power Transportation Technology

Study That Argued EVs Aren't Cleaner Gets an Update (arstechnica.com) 86

Posted by BeauHD from the now-that's-more-like-it dept.
An anonymous reader shares an update to a 2017 study from the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute that claimed the manufacturing of big batteries for electric vehicles generates so much emissions that all later savings are canceled out. "Based on the data that it had to work with, the institute's study put the emissions at 150-200 kilograms of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of lithium-ion battery capacity -- one of the highest estimates that has been published," reports Ars Technica. "But IVL recently took another pass at this effort, incorporating newer data and some slightly different methods. This new study puts the emissions at 61-106kg, depending on the energy sources and efficiencies of different manufacturing plants. That cuts the estimate in half and puts it much more in line with other studies." From the report: So what accounts for the change, exactly? A few things are going on here. The first is a simple methodological change -- this study leaves out emissions associated with recycling the battery, which accounted for 15kg of CO2 in the 2017 estimate. There are different ways to define the boundaries of such a life-cycle analysis, including "cradle-to-grave" methods that cover disposal and "cradle-to-gate" methods that cover up to the point you receive the car. To make apples-to-apples comparisons, you have to know what kind of estimate you're looking at.

More importantly, the study took advantage of more recent data that measures emissions during critical steps in the manufacturing process. As the battery manufacturing industry matures, plants are running closer to capacity and with efficiency improvements. Battery chemistry, too, is shifting. [...] The cathodes and anodes of these batteries are made by mixing materials in a solvent (water or otherwise) and then evaporating the solvent to leave a powder behind. This drying dominates the energy use of the manufacturing process. More recent measurements of this process in operating plants are a major source of the difference between the new study and the 2017 study, which estimated 1.6 time to 3 times greater energy use for drying.

The new version also acknowledges that the electricity used in the manufacturing process is coming from cleaner sources and could potentially come entirely from renewables. That helps bring the low end of the estimated range down. Of the estimated 61-106kg of CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour of battery capacity, 59kg comes from the raw materials used in the battery. Then, the manufacturing process accounts for 2-47kg, depending on the mix of energy sources used. The 2017 study used a slightly higher number for raw materials -- 60-70kg of CO2 -- but estimated manufacturing emissions at 70-110kg. Then, it added emissions associated with recycling.
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Study That Argued EVs Aren't Cleaner Gets an Update More

Study That Argued EVs Aren't Cleaner Gets an Update

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  • Pollution will ever happen. Relocating the pollution far away is already what was achieved!
    • we can reduce the emissions at the power plants by building more green energy plants (Solar, Wind, etc). Oh, and (*snicker*) clean coal.
      • Clean Coal = Unobtanium

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          You can burn coal reasonably cleanly as fossil fuels go (it's hard to beat natural gas). There are some cool technologies. It's not a technological limitation, let's say, preventing "clean" coal plants. But you can't realistically upgrade power plants (at least in the US) to modernize them, due to Byzantine regulatory disincentives, and if you're going to build a new power plant and care about "clean" in the first place, it's not like you're going to pick coal, even the cleanest technology for coal. Obv

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      English isn't your first language, is it? We'd say it like "Pollution will always happen. We've already relocated the pollution far away!"

      But of course the problem is that we only have one atmosphere and one connected ocean. You can't really relocate pollution far away without going to space. Every place on earth is close enough for pollution to hurt you.

  • It is always cradle to grave (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @06:03PM (#59485776) Homepage Journal

    In climate accounting for sustainability, the gold standard is to use cradle-to-grave emissions.

    This mean exploration, mining, processing, the fuel for processing, the materials for processing, the fabrication, the supplies and transportation including labor for fabrication, and so on, and includes disposal - even if recycling or reusing it has an impact.

    On scales like these regions with green energy will always do well, as much of their infrastructure is also green, so places like King County in Washington State, where Seattle get 99 percent of energy from wind, solar, hydro, and biofuel and most people walk, bike, or take transit or vanpools to get to work, and goods are shipped by river and ocean or by train for the most part.

    You can do it to. Build and assemble your EVs this way. Green energy is substantially cheaper than outdated expensive fossil fuels. New efficient plants have few emissions.

    Adapt. The world gives no prizes for making your species go extinct.

    • King County power breakdown [kingcounty.gov]. Overwhelmingly hydro (great geography for that - not applicable to 90% of the US) and you get more from nuclear than from solar and wind combined. You get more from coal or natural gas than solar and wind combined. Using King County as an example, we should use as many of our mountain rivers as possible (all major rivers in Western Washington are dammed), and then go with lots of coal, nuclear and gas - with a smattering of wind and solar for "feel good" reasons.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GregMmm ( 5115215 )

      Fact check: Seattle is no where near 99% wind, solar, hydro, and biofuel. 65% is the correct number. Here is the link to King County's site:

      https://your.kingcounty.gov/dn... [kingcounty.gov]

      Lion share has always been Hydro forever. We're lucky here in the pacific northwest.

    • Re:It is always cradle to grave (Score:4, Interesting)

      by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @08:59PM (#59486218)

      In climate accounting for sustainability, the gold standard is to use cradle-to-grave emissions.

      Yesish... but the problem specifically people had with lithium ion is the question of where "Grave" is.

      If recycling the battery means simply stripping the cells and putting them into stationary battery installations that's very different from separating out the nickle and lithium and making new batteries.

      And if you create new batteries... is that the cradle or is that grave? Suddenly a recycled battery is using numbers from a battery manufactured from ore out of the ground so your cradle to grave numbers are off because you have a different cradle.

      We don't include grave costs of recycling steel in an automobile to reprocess it for new steel car bodies... nor should we. But they do include recycling costs of batteries? That's a double standard.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cb88 ( 1410145 )
        It's only difficult for those with thier bottom line or green agenda in mind.... EVs *must* recycle thier batteries to be green... that isn't up for debate so it must be included.

        Recycling infrastructure isn't really implemented right now... even though it should be, this is a black mark on the industry.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      Cradle to grave doesn't work for moving targets. The grid is getting cleaner every day (except in the US). More wind, water, and solar are coming online, and fossil fuels are being decommissioned. So the EV is cleaner tomorrow than it was yesterday. The cradle-to-grave assumptions are usually based on well-documented numbers from 1-20 years ago, not projections of the future, which is what "cradle-to-grave" is.

      When the C-to-G includes the greenifying of the power grid, then it will be a useful measure.

    • the gold standard is to use cradle-to-grave emissions.

      Except cradle to grave is a difficult metric to define for a system which has a lot of second hand reuse and recycle of the primary energy source. That was the problem in the original estimate, the idea that for a car it is made, used, and scrapped. The reality is the car is made, used, primary energy element is recycled and reused, the car is used some more and eventually scrapped. Further is the question if a new car then creates a battery from scratch or recycles a previous battery.

      Tesla is already using

      • You also have fewer moving parts, so wear and tear and lifespan are different.

        Expect electrical systems to become more critical.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      In climate accounting for sustainability, the gold standard is to use cradle-to-grave emissions.

      Thank goodness it's just the cradle to grave. Imagine if you had to count the conception and gestation period to create the battery.

  • ...was political pressure.

    • Re:And no part of this reassessment... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @06:09PM (#59485788)

      ...was political pressure.

      Yeah, and no study on EV's and renewables sponsored by the fossil fuel industry and its political pawns ever had any economic ideological motivations to make renewable and EV's look bad.

      • Re:And no part of this reassessment... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @06:26PM (#59485840) Journal

        ...was political pressure.

        Yeah, and no study on EV's and renewables sponsored by the fossil fuel industry and its political pawns ever had any economic ideological motivations to make renewable and EV's look bad.

        Yep, that's a point. It's very likely that both statements are untrue. I think we're seeing something that at its root has nothing to do with clean energy, only a struggle between competing economic and political power bases.

        • Yep, that's a point. It's very likely that both statements are untrue. I think we're seeing something that at its root has nothing to do with clean energy, only a struggle between competing economic and political power bases.

          Evidence please

        • Re:And no part of this reassessment... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @07:09PM (#59485928) Homepage

          It doesn't take a conspiracy theory. Occam's Razor: the reason it was different from all other studies on the topic was... it was a bad study. It happens.

          But just like that study was built on bad data that was already obsolete at the time they wrote it, so is the new study; they're always years behind. In fact, not to put too fine of a point on it, but:

          This drying dominates the energy use of the manufacturing process.

          While they use obsolete figures, in general, this is a true statement.. Which is why next year Tesla is building the first of their dry-manufacturing lines (they purchased Maxwell earlier this year for their dry manufacturing technology). Instead of dissolving the binder in a solvent, then after calendaring having to run it through vacuum ovens the length of a football field, then solvent recovery systems... instead, there's just a single step: calendaring. The binder is an ultrafine thermoset powder, and the heat and pressure in the calendaring process sets the electrodes.

          In short, with dry manufacturing, you eliminate the overwhelming majority of the energy consumption (which at battery plants is increasingly solar - in the specific case of Tesla, you can watch the buildout process via satellite in near-realtime here [buildingtesla.com]). It's not being done for energy consumption reasons, of course - it's being done for cost reasons. The race for EVs is a race for cheap batteries in huge quantities.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Alwin Henseler ( 640539 )

            Had to look up the word, it's calendering [wikipedia.org]. How this might look in practice, can be seen eg. in this video [youtube.com] (starting at 1:15).

            I'm having a bit difficulty grasping how this single step in the process would be so energy-expensive as compared to the overall process of mining raw materials, transport, producing the metal foils, casing, electrolyte, etc etc. But then again I'm no Li-ion battery manufacturer or bean counter at such a facility. If indeed that is major cost component, then it appears likely this

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Rei ( 128717 )

              "would be so energy-expensive as ... If indeed that is major cost component ..."

              Be careful not to conflate energy and cost. I had a handy graphic that showed the percentage of cost (both amortized capital and operations) that is embodied in each part of the process, but it'd take a while for me to find it again. I recall that the solvent evaporation and recovery process only typically represented something like 20% of a cell's embodied (financial) cost to a manufacturer. But it represents most of the cel

      • Yeah, and no study on EV's and renewables sponsored by the fossil fuel industry and its political pawns ever had any economic ideological motivations to make renewable and EV's look bad.

        Depends on the purpose of the study. Some studies are sent out for public consumption only. Their goal is to make EVs look bad. Other studies are funded in a form of market research used internally as well.

        You can say what you want, but fossil fuels funded studies into the economics of EVs is precisely why some oil companies are getting heavily into electric charging. It's important to know when the writing is on the wall for your industry.

    • Evidence please.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Study doesn't agree with your dumb ass bias, clearly it's political pressure.

  • Recycling (Score:5, Informative)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @06:08PM (#59485784)

    If you're going to include numbers for recycling batteries, then for a fair comparison you need to include the resource usage for recycling CO2 from internal combustion engines.

    In the second half of this century, we are most likely be forced to deploy colossal fleets of energy-hungry CO2 recovery machines in a desperate attempt to stave off the impending runaway greenhouse effect and/or antarctic meltdown that we will have triggered. Those costs need to be assigned to current auto manufacture. (And the CO2 recycling costs can't even be allocated to building the next generation of vehicles, like battery recycling can).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      "In the second half of this century, we are most likely be forced to deploy colossal fleets of energy-hungry CO2 recovery machines"

      Do " CO2 recovery machines" actually exist?

      (Unless you mean trees)

      • There are prototype machines for direct CO2 extraction. There are also theories for other processes, like using certain minerals or biochar to sequester CO2, which will require their own costly machines to deploy. Trees can help, but there's likely not enough real estate available for them to handle the magnitude of the problem by themselves, and you have to do something to keep them from eventually rotting and re-releasing the CO2. No matter what, it's going to be hugely expensive.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )

        Tree are carbon neutral. The carbon the capture eventually gets released back into the environment.

        • The "eventually" may not matter if the timeframe is long enough. Wood will not release all of its carbon into the atmosphere unless it's literally burned. If used as a building material it can last for centuries and be recycled many times. For the purposes of our civilization it is very much a carbon sink.

      • Do " CO2 recovery machines" actually exist?

        Yes.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        The US Navy has been working on this process for years. This is a Navy project because it will allow a nuclear powered aircraft carrier to supply fuel to the aircraft it carries without needing an oil tanker to come up alongside to fill the tanks. This technology has finally got some interest from private investors that want to use this technology to market carbon neutral fuels to compete with petroleum fuels.

        I've seen claims that the people working on this intend to i

        • Since its a US Navy/Airforce/Army Research thingy dingy, the reason its not gotten more attention is that the fiscal distribition to do large scale testing is bottlenecked by Department of Energy. Meanwhile the Department of Energy is really the department of "Keeping Nuclear Power Plants afloat to possibly make weapon grade nuclear fuel".
          So what is essentially happening is that the army get a small project going, gets some results, but its finally gotten to the stage where it needs some form of large scale

        • You've actually been told a large number of times why nobody gives the process attention. You ignore the reasons, and keep posting your basically ignorant viewpoint over and over. The process you mention of generating hydrocarbons is extremely inefficient...operating about about 12.4% efficiency. In addition, an ICE engine works about about 20% efficiency. An EV, by contrast, works about about 60% efficiency. So in the end, it take about 25 times more energy to power a car by generated hydrocarbon than

          • However, it would be prohibitively expensive...at consumer electrical rates, driving a Honda Civic would cost about a dollar a mile.

            The people working on the technology say that with their current process they can produce fuel at about double the current price of petroleum fuels. This might not be all that great for a Honda Civic, because there are electric alternatives, but is there an electric alternative to a Boeing 747? There is not. Is there an electric alternative for transoceanic shipping? No. Can we launch a satellite to orbit with a battery powered rocket? No. Not only does this technology not exist physics tells us this

    • If you're going to include numbers for recycling batteries, then for a fair comparison you need to include the resource usage for recycling CO2 from internal combustion engines.

      In the second half of this century, we are most likely be forced to deploy colossal fleets of energy-hungry CO2 recovery machines in a desperate attempt to stave off the impending runaway greenhouse effect and/or antarctic meltdown that we will have triggered. Those costs need to be assigned to current auto manufacture. (And the CO2 recycling costs can't even be allocated to building the next generation of vehicles, like battery recycling can).

      THIS! The problem is that Big Oil is only selling you a piece of the product. The rest is will be paid for later long after they are out of business.

      It would be like Burger King selling you a burger that required you to get your own bun ( the oxygen), and forced you to throw the Styrofoam container out the window on your dive home for the city to pick up.

      • THIS! The problem is that Big Oil is only selling you a piece of the product. The rest is will be paid for later long after they are out of business.

        It would be like Burger King selling you a burger that required you to get your own bun ( the oxygen), and forced you to throw the Styrofoam container out the window on your dive home for the city to pick up.

        Burger King does not pay for sewage treatment plants, it makes more sense to socialize that cost as we all benefit from food. Likewise we all benefit from reliable electrical power and transportation networks, so some of those downstream costs are socialized too.

        • Burger King does not pay for sewage treatment plants, it makes more sense to socialize that cost as we all benefit from food. Likewise we all benefit from reliable electrical power and transportation networks, so some of those downstream costs are socialized too.

          Sorry, I don't think the analogy succeeds.

          We all benefit from converting stuff containing carbon, plus oxygen, into carbon dioxide. (It happens when we breathe, for example.) But industries who benefit from doing so disproportionately do not deserve socialized subsidies. Yet they still receive them. [eesi.org] Wrongly, IMHO. It should be the reverse.

          A better approach is to get those who benefit from adding to the CO2 burden of the earth to pay to offset its effects. I predict such industries would scramble to bring th

          • It's easy to rail against big bad oil, but the fact is, if I could wave a magic wand and remove all vestiges of fossil fuels from your life, you would be so f****d. Most people don't think that deeply about it, but think about living in the most impoverished country in the world, except worse.

            Burning is is only one small facet of their use. As I pointed out in a previous post, even if we all had solar power and drove electric cars tomorrow, we will still be using oil for plastics, fertilizer, lubricants,

    • If you're going to include numbers for recycling batteries, then for a fair comparison you need to include the resource usage for recycling CO2 from internal combustion engines.

      Close, but it raises a red herring. (Especially as those emissions are already included in the CO2-to-CO2 comparison.)

      Try this instead:

      If you're going to include numbers for building and recycling batteries, then for a fair comparison you need to include the resource usage for building and recycling internal combustion engines.

      It ta

      • If you're going to include numbers for building and recycling batteries, then for a fair comparison you need to include the resource usage for building and recycling internal combustion engines.
        It takes a LOT of heat to melt down and recycle all that cast iron and steel - and it's usually fuel heat rather than solar or other renewable source energy.

        Most of them are mostly Aluminum now, except for cranks, bearings, pulleys, some sprockets, and connecting rods. Some sprockets are actually mostly plastic. Aluminum is cheap to recycle, because of the low melting point. It costs more to produce, but you break even the first time you recycle it. And it's easy to sort with laser spectroscopy.

        On the other hand, when batteries are reused, none of that stuff has to happen at all. And most EV batteries are reused, because they're still valuable when they're not

  • So now they can change their data to be honest...

  • Do that with nuclear then (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We found that after removing the costs for "recycling uranium" that nuclear is far cleaner, less polluting and cheaper than any other energy source.

  • notice how the narrative is manipulated to equate dirt with CO2, ignoring all other polluting agents

  • this study leaves out emissions associated with recycling the battery

    You know, like when discussing nuclear, the Greens leave out the part about nuclear waste. :-/

    The new version also acknowledges that the electricity used in the manufacturing process is coming from cleaner sources and could potentially come entirely from renewables.

    "Potentially". What a crock of shit! Non-hydro renewables account for <4% of world power generation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    This is a pathetic attempt to "fix-up" and skew the numbers to make the study politically acceptable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      You take cleaner source and then just use hydro.

      You are a disingenuous twit that does not understand scientific methodology or process.

  • The "MIning Argument": Still stupid (Score:3)

    by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @07:16PM (#59485940)

    Because electricity is a medium of exchange for energy, the only way to compare the cleanliness of an electrically-powered technology is to look at the original source of that electricity. If you want to summarize the ancillary costs of that technology, such as mining the ore that cars are made of, refining it, transporting cars to market, and so on, make that a sidebar figure. Those ancillary pollution costs will trend down as the economy as a whole is cleaned up. Shall we include the fossil costs of car dealerships and repair shops?

    Lumping the ancillary figure into the cost of electric technology not only prevents us from comparing the cleanliness of original sources, but can be fudged as far as you wish to favor or oppose any technology by choosing which ancillary costs to add in.

  • It sure is looking like we solved the problem of global warming. We have electric vehicles now with lower CO2 emissions than gasoline burners, and with a lower total cost of ownership. People would have to have more dollars than sense to buy a gasoline burner now.

    On top of this we have solar power with batteries that is cheaper than natural gas, coal, or nuclear power. And to cross oceans we just have to put the final touches on electric airplanes and cargo ships.

    Yep, problem solved.

    Now, I'm not totally

    • Nope. They're solving the problem of reducing CO2 emissions of certain technologies, e.g. cars. This is reduction, not elimination &, as the paper & others underline, the reductions aren't really all that big. Addressing the issue of an overly-heavy reliance on cars is likely to be more effective at reducing CO2 emissions. That means better mass-transportation, particularly for commuters (as well as multiple other energy efficiency measures), but that's also something that some governments, e.g. USA

    • People would have to have more dollars than sense to buy a gasoline burner now.

      Not sure if this was intended as sarcasm, but people buy ICE vehicles for the same reason they pay rent rather than buying a home. Most of us have to shop within our budget, and that doesn't always end up being the best TCO. Maybe a $35k model 3 does cost less to "fuel" up with electricity than a Hyundai Accent with gas. But I can afford the payments on the Accent, and can't on the Tesla, so the "fuel" savings is moot.

      I'm sure someone is also thinking "Why compare a Korean econobox to a Tesla?" Because

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by clive27 ( 889511 )
        Most (poor) people living in city can afford a used Nissan Leaf. It would now have a range of ~50 miles and cost $7000. If they thought about it, Leaf makes much more sense than the unreliable Accent. For the price of Accent, you can even get a used BMW i3 with a range extender. Used electric car payment will be lower than what would cost them for gas. Also, they shouldn't drive longer than 25 miles for a job that doesn't let them afford $10000 car.

        • So, rather than buy a new ICE vehicle with a full warranty, you buy a used electric shitbox with no range, which is essentially at the end of its life because of battery degradation? Used Nissan Leafs are $7k specifically because their air-cooled batteries don't hold up, and are prohibitively expensive to replace.

          Why would someone need more than 50 miles of range? Uh, because this isn't Communist China. Maybe they have family that lives further away, maybe they want to do Uber Eats to supplement their lo

  • Does it account for ICE noise pollution?
    Does it account for pollution from road runoff?
    Does it account for the processing or burning of waste engine oil?
    Does it account for the mining of palladium or platinum that is required for the catalytic converters?
    Does such a pointless study even matter?

    EVs are the future.

  • It is also very important to note that not only are EVs becoming less and less harmful to the environment to manufacture as time goes by, but using electricity is simply a more efficient way to convert potential energy into kinetic energy. The U.S. Department of Energy states "EVs convert about 59%–62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels." When electricity

  • The environmental LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) does indeed rank original mining and extraction as the highest cost, and the original paper helped us keep this in mind.

    The update does re-incorporate the recycling opportunities for the older batteries. As a previous post mentioned, automobiles now have approximately 85% capture and recycling rate of old lead acid batteries, which greatly reduces the mining and extraction impacts.

    What is still missing, I believe, is the reuse market for EV batteries which are pul

  • Sounds like Big Oil is Desperate (Score:3)

    by X!0mbarg ( 470366 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @08:00AM (#59487210)

    If they can't block the cars, then they target the manufacturing process.
    It's a lot easier to make a factory cleaner, as the systems are all in one place, and can be re-engineered to be a lot cleaner, while the electric cars are already in a much cleaner state.

    Typical big business manoeuvring, though.
    If you can't block them head-on, take out their supply chain and watch 'em starve.

    Not saying that the process isn't less that ideal in it's current state. Probably quite a mess right now.
    As technology progresses, the cleaner methods and system will be implemented, and things will improve.

  • Slave labor used in mining for materials needed to produce the batteries is a serious issue. No, it isn't related to climate change, but it is indeed a cost that needs to be measured.

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