Opinion: The raw material cost of the switch to EVs
Do the numbers stack up in the government’s 2030 petrol and diesel ban?
The Government’s announcement that it wants to end the sale of all but the longest-range plug-in hybrids by 2030 is certainly ambitious. But it might also be impossible, according to a group of scientists working in a group called SoSMinErals.
The group wrote to the government Committee on Climate Change in June 2019, expressing great concern that the raw materials needed for the UK’s switch to Electric Vehicles might not be available in the volumes needed.
One of the authors of the letter was Prof Richard Herrington, the Natural History Museum’s Head of Earth Sciences. One paragraph contained some stark figures:
“The metal resource needed to make all cars and vans electric by 2050 and all sales to be purely battery electric by 2035…(not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes of cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes of copper.
According to Harrington and his fellow scientists, ‘this represents just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters of the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018’. And that’s just for the UK, with 2 million car sales per year.
They also point out the huge energy requirements for battery metals extraction. ‘Energy costs for cobalt production are estimated at 7000-8000 kWh for every tonne of metal produced and for copper 9000 kWh/t’. Which shows just how battery production is so energy-intensive.
Then, as SoSMinErals points out, there’s the extra energy required to charge electric cars. ‘Using figures published for current EVs (Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe), driving 252.5 billion miles uses at least 63 TWh of power. This will demand a 20% increase in UK generated electricity’
Doing this in mind of the UK’s ‘net zero’ electrical energy requirement would require greater wind and solar capacity.
Herrington goes on to calculate the raw material impact of expanding the UK’s solar capacity to meet EV recharging requirements.
‘With a capacity factor of only ~10%, the UK would require ~72GW of photovoltaic input to fuel the EV fleet; over five times the current installed capacity. If CdTe-type photovoltaic power is used, that would consume over thirty years of current annual tellurium supply’.
Moreover… ‘Solar power is also problematic – it is also resource hungry; all the photovoltaic systems currently on the market are reliant on one or more raw materials classed as “critical” or “near critical” by the EU and/ or US Department of Energy (high purity silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium)’. Wind turbine construction is also hungry for copper, neodymium and dysprosium, the letter says.
Of course, the UK could charge a growing EV fleet via Nuclear power, but replacements for our ageing existing plants remain gridlocked, though Rolls Royce’s plan for 16 mini-nuclear reactors looks very promising.
All of which raw-earth and mining horror backs up my personal issue with batteries as a way of storing energy. They are resource-intensive, energy hungry, heavy and expensive.
I like to look at this way: a 60-litre plastic liquid fuel tank for a car probably costs around $50 at factory prices (though you’d need to order a million a year). A 90kWh battery with a real-world 300-mile range costs at least $10,000 at factory prices.
I remain convinced Hydrogen (possibly cracked from seawater by wind power or by power from Rolls Royce’s future mini reactors) and synthetic liquid fuels made by the sun’s energy remain a far better environmental bet for de-carbonising road transport from 2030.
*READ MORE*
*Official: Government to ban new petrol and diesel car sales in 2030 *
*National Grid: Mass EV adoption key for UK net zero goal *
*Analysis: How UK will keep EVs charging*