There may not be enough minerals and metals in the world to achieve the planned EV growth
By Ronald Stein
Ambassador for Energy and Infrastructure, Irvine, California
The world’s plans for electric vehicles to dominate the vehicle population are similar to plans to build a large house without enough materials to ever complete the house.
Pressure to go green is mounting as countries announce plans to phase out gasoline and diesel cars. Germany will stop selling all new gasoline and diesel vehicles from 2030, Scotland from 2032, and France and Great Britain from 2040.
Even California, the current leader in America, which is home to 50 percent of all electric vehicles in that state, got on the electric vehicle train with Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who will be participating in the 2021 recall, and passed an executive order banning it in 2020 Sales of Gas-Powered Vehicles in California through 2035.
A Tesla Lithium EV battery weighs more than 1,000 pounds. While there are dozens of variations, such an EV battery typically contains roughly:
- 25 pounds of lithium,
- 30 pounds of cobalt,
- 60 pounds of nickel,
- 110 pounds of graphite,
- 90 pounds of copper,
By looking at the ore grades upstream, one can estimate the typical amount of rock that would need to be extracted from the earth and processed to obtain the pure minerals needed to make that single battery:
- Lithium brine typically contains less than 0.1% lithium, so it takes about 25,000 pounds of brine to get the 25 pounds of pure lithium.
- Cobalt ore grades averaged about 0.1%, nearly 30,000 pounds of ore to get 30 pounds of cobalt.
- Nickel ore grades averaged about 1%, or about 6,000 pounds of ore to make 60 pounds of nickel.
- Graphite ore is typically 10%, roughly 1,000 pounds per battery to get 100 pounds of graphite.
- Copper with about 0.6% in the ore, so about 25,000 pounds of ore per battery to get 90 pounds of copper.
Overall, acquiring just these five items to make the 1,000 pound EV battery requires mining approximately 90,000 pounds of ore. To properly account for the total moving earth – which is relevant to the total environmental footprint and energy consumption of mining equipment – must estimate the amount of spoil or the materials that were first excavated to get to the ore. Depending on the type and location of ore, around 3 to 20 tons of soil are removed to access every ton of ore.
This means that between 200,000 and over 1,500,000 pounds of earth must be dug and moved to access approximately 90,000 pounds of ore – an approximate average of more than 500,000 pounds of ore per battery.
According to Michael Kelly, Professor Emeritus of Technology at Cambridge University, replacing all 32 million UK light duty vehicles with next-generation EVs would require enormous amounts of materials to produce 32 million EV batteries:
- more than 50 percent of the world’s annual copper production.
- 200 percent of its annual cobalt.
- 75 percent annual lithium carbonate production; and
- Almost 100 percent of its total annual production is from neodymium.
It is easy to see that the world may not have enough minerals and metals for the EV batteries to support the roadmap for EV growth forecasting when you look at that today:
Today, fewer than 8 million electric vehicles are in use on the world’s highways. If the projections for electric vehicles are turned into reality by 2035, 5 to 7 percent of the 2 billion vehicles would represent 125 million electric vehicles on the world’s roads, and potentially double that number if governments accelerate the pace of law changes. However, looking at the UK study of the materials needed for just 32 million EV batteries, there may not be enough materials in the world to complete the EV retrofit plans.
Another bad news is that single-digit penetration into the world’s projected 2 billion vehicles would also represent more than 125 billion pounds of lithium-ion batteries, just out of the 125 million electric vehicles that will need to be disposed of in decades to come.
Zero and low emission vehicles generally come from the owners of hybrid and electric cars, which are a scientific group. Over 70 percent of EV owners have a four-year college or postgraduate degree. This probably explains why the average household income of EV buyers is over $ 200,000. Unless you are in this higher education, high income society, and are a homeowner or a NEW apartment dweller with paid access, you may not have an appetite for an electric vehicle.
A recent study in California from 2021 shows that electric vehicles are driven half as often as internal combustion engine vehicles, further showing that electric vehicles are generally secondary vehicles rather than the primary workhorse for the few elites who can afford them.
If we go back to these plans of building a large house with insufficient supplies of materials to ever finish the house, perhaps we should learn from the UK study what materials are required for just 32 million EV batteries (less than 7 percent of 2 Billion vehicles in 2035) and strive for an EV population that can be supported by the global supply of minerals and metals.
Ronald Stein, PE
Ambassador for energy & infrastructure
Intro – ENERGY MADE SIMPLE (energyliteracy.net)
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