12 Point Response to anti-renewable article

[Dardedar]

1) Claim: “to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.”

An EV has zero emissions during use. It usually takes some energy/carbon and emissions to make the power for the vehicle, but not always. The carbon emissions used to make the battery for an EV is usually paid back in about 11 months, or 9,000 miles. And many times over.
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When do electric vehicles become cleaner than gasoline cars?
A Tesla being driven in Norway, which generates almost all its electricity from renewable hydropower, the break-even point would come after just 8,400 miles.
Even in the worst case scenario where an EV is charged only from a coal-fired grid, it would generate an extra 4.1 million grams of carbon a year while a comparable gasoline car would produce over 4.6 million grams,
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 021-06-29/?

2) Claim: “since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?"

Not even close.
“The current state of coal power generation in the USA -- in just 12 years, coal's share fell from 48.5% to 23.5%.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/02/ ... st-ye.aspx?
In 2020 it was 19%. Renewables passed coal in the US in 2020. Coal now sits idle half the time, can’t compete. And note:
“Coal Will Equal 85% Of U.S. Electric Generating Capacity Retirements In 2022
"...12.6 GW of coal capacity is scheduled to retire in 2022, or 6% of the coal-fired generating capacity that was operating at the end of 2021.”
There will never be another coal plant built in the US.

As the grid gets cleaner, the cars are cleaner. And EVs are cleaner regardless of what you charge them with.
Electric Cars Are Cleaner Even When Powered by Coal
Electric cars are better for the environment than traditional gasoline models, and that benefit will grow as power generators shift away from coal.
That’s the conclusion of research by BloombergNEF, which found carbon dioxide emissions from battery-powered vehicles were about 40 percent lower than for internal combustion engines last year. The difference was biggest in Britain and the U.K., which have large renewables industries.
“When an internal combustion vehicle rolls off the line its emissions per km are set, but for an EV they keep falling every year as the grid gets cleaner,”
The global share of zero-carbon electricity generation is set to increase from 38 percent last year to 63 percent by 2040."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

3) Claim: EV batteries… “30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt” “mining in Congo” “lithium”

Those concerned with cobalt problems will want more EVs, and less diesel fuel. Most cobalt is used for oil processing.
“Any claim of a child labour connection with the Congolese Cobalt in EV batteries is either not very well informed, or is being purposefully deceptive, both is usually the case in Climate Denial arguments about Cobalt & EV batteries. The reality is that only 5% of Congolese Cobalt is mined by child labour and all of these Cobalt mines are illegal. By far the largest use of Cobalt is in desulphurisation process of Naphtha streams (crude oil processing).”
https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/electric-mobility.html

And we don’t need cobalt for lithium batteries. the new Tesla batteries don’t use cobalt, as Tesla promised in 2018
Mercedes-Benz May Have An Edge With IBM's New Cobalt-Free Battery
“M-B helped develop the new technology, which is cheaper and more energy-dense than current Li-Ion batteries.
The IBM Research-Almaden innovation lab released last December 18 it has developed a new battery technology that is not dependent on heavy metals, such as nickel or cobalt.”
https://insideevs.com/news/389659/merce ... e-battery/?

4) Claim: “you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just - one - battery."

This is an absurd unreferenced claim.
The battery in my mostly EV has 2lbs of lithium in it, about $20 worth. All of the EV batteries will be recycled, profitably. The materials reused. An EV will avoid burning about 10,000 gallons of gas, which puts 200,000lbs of Co2 in the air.

5) Claim: “main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into”

There is nothing toxic in a solar panel.
Silicon PV cells (90% of solar) contain no rare, fancy or particularly toxic elements at all: silicon plus minuscule amounts of phosphorus and boron as dopants in the cell proper, silver (in tiny quantities, and it is technically optional, cheaper metals have been shown to work almost as well) as backing, copper wiring, plastic insulation, glass and aluminium frames.
No rare earths. No indium or tellurium. All familiar household stuff.
The manufacturing process for silicon PV has some small amounts of some nastier stuff like silane, nitrogen fluoride and fluorine gases, silicon tetrachloride, and powerful acids. These chemicals require careful handling.
As is the case with pretty much all of the electronics everyone enjoys. Except those other electronics don’t make enough electricity to avoid the burning of 14 tons of coal. A single solar panel does that.

6) Claim: “the [solar] panels cannot be recycled.”

That’s completely wrong:
a)) Game-changing solar company recycles old panels into new ones
First Solar began investing in recycling and established the first voluntary global panel recycling program in 2005. They now have recycling facilities in the US, Malaysia and Germany and offer customers a service to recover and process panels globally. Their technology involves a continuous flow process and results in the recovery and recycling of over 90% of the semiconductor material and approximately 90% of the glass used in its panels. This material is then re-used in new First Solar modules and for new glass or rubber products.”
https://www.newenergysolar.com.au/renew ... -recycling?

b) Canada: Solar X revolutionizes the solar industry in Canada with the launch of its new solar panel reuse + recycle program
https://pvbuzz.com/solar-x-launch-solar ... e-program/?

c) Italy: Mechanical technique for PV module recycling
“An Italian consortium has developed a panel recycling process recovers up to 99% of raw materials. The developers claim their technique takes only 40 seconds to fully recycle a standard panel, depending on size and recycling site conditions.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/01/ ... recycling/

d) Australia: One of Australia’s first solar PV recycling facilities is up and running in Melbourne’s north, The plant will recycle 100% of end-of-life solar PV modules and all associated materials recovered – inverters, cables, optimisers, mounting structures – using no chemicals.
100% of the materials separated from this process will be reused and given a second life. All inverters, rail components, cable can be processed in this facility.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias- ... to-action/


7) Claim: “Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction.”

Quite the opposite. That claim applies to filthy coal, not wind and solar. For emissions, wind is about 90x cleaner than coal, and 40x cleaner than gas. The amount of energy and carbon emissions involved in wind power is well studied. The Energy Return on Investment (EROI), is excellent. A turbine pays back the energy used to make it in less than a year, and about 44x over. Two references.
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“A 2017 study in Nature Energy found that when accounting for manufacturing and construction, the lifetime carbon footprints of solar, wind, and nuclear power are about one-twentieth of those of coal and natural gas, even when the latter include expensive carbon capture and storage technology. The energy produced during the operation of a solar panel and wind turbine is 26 and 44 times greater than the energy needed to build and install them, respectively. There are many life-cycle assessment studies arriving at similar conclusions.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind- ... footprints
Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9

Comparative life cycle assessment of 2.0 MW wind turbines
“The work presented examines life cycle environmental impacts of two 2.0 MW wind turbines. Manufacturing, transport, installation, maintenance, and end of life have been considered for both models and are compared using the ReCiPe 2008 impact assessment method. In addition, energy payback analysis was conducted based on the cumulative energy demand and the energy produced by the wind turbines over 20 years. Life cycle assessment revealed that environmental impacts are concentrated in the manufacturing stage, which accounts for 78% of impacts. The energy payback period for the two turbine models are found to be 5.2 and 6.4 months, respectively.”
https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/ ... 014.062496?

8) Claim: Windmills have “the hard to extract rare earths”

Good news on this rare earth talking point. Three points.
a) There's no shortage. They're not rare. Never have been.
Japan Discovers Rare-Earth Mineral Deposit That Can Supply The World For Centuries
"Researchers found a deposit of rare-earth minerals off the coast of Japan that could supply the world for centuries, according to a study.
The study, published in the journal Nature in April 2018, says the deposit contains 16 million tons of the valuable metals."
https://www.sciencealert.com/japan-disc ... -centuries

b) They can be recycled.
Nissan tests an EV motor-magnet recycling breakthrough
Nissan claims that it’s been able to recover 98% of a motor’s rare-earth elements using their new recycling process.
https://electrek.co/2021/09/03/nissan-t ... akthrough/?

c) We can make motors and generators without them.
In Mahle's Contact-Free Electric Motor, Power Reaches the Rotor Wirelessly
There's no wear and tear—and no rare earths, either
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-thi ... o-contacts?

9) Claim: “windmills will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced.”

Turbines are designed to last about 25 years on purpose. They could make them last longer but after that period of time, the main system is pretty worn out and after 25 years the new tech is so vastly better and cheaper it makes sense to upgrade to the new technology rather than overhaul and refurbish. Like this:
"East of San Francisco, one of the country’s oldest wind farms has produced power for more than 30 years.
There, almost 1,500 old turbines were taken down in recent years. Only 82 new ones were installed in their place, but they produce about the same amount of electricity."
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/ ... efficient/
Meaning, the turbines are 18 TIMES more powerful than the ones they are replacing. That's a lot.
And now we have ones that are 50x more powerful than that on the way.
Also note, thermal plants such as coal, gas and nuke also get regular expensive upgrades and refurbishment about every 20-30 years as well.

10) Claim: “We cannot recycle used blades.”

That’ll be news to all of the people recycling them. Four examples.

a) Blade recycling: Top priority for the wind industry
Wind turbines already have a recyclability rate of 85% to 90%.
Vestas announced its plans for zero-waste turbines. 14k wind turbine blades will be decommissioned in Europe next 5 years. The recycling of these old blades is a top priority for the wind industry."
https://windeurope.org/newsroom/news/bl ... -industry/?

b) GE announces wind turbine blade recycling contract with Veolia
GE Renewable Energy has announced it has signed a multi-year agreement with Veolia North America (VNA) to recycle blades removed from its US-based onshore turbines during upgrades and repowering efforts.
https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com ... t-20201208?

c) A Scottish university finds new life for old wind turbine blades
https://electrek.co/2021/04/26/a-scotti ... ne-blades/?

d) Decommissioned wind turbine blades used for cement co-processing
An initiative to recycle wind turbine blades includes the use of recycled glass fiber composites for cement manufacturing, replacing raw material and saving energy.
https://www.compositesworld.com/blog/po ... processing?

11) “you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions.”

We don’t need zero, we need better. And renewables are better. By a lot. Which is why 90% of new installed capacity in the last few years had been renewables. A solution doesn’t have to be perfect to be better (Perfectionist Fallacy).

12) “Going Green is more destructive to the Earth's environment than meets the eye”

Then it would be possible to show that without resorting to the same old tired and inaccurate canards that the competing carbon and nuclear industry have been peddling for years.
Which is what this article is from start to finish, as was easy to show.

[Dardedar]

Another roast of the article, here: "Fisking the latest Anti-EV screed"

https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicl ... very_long/

[Dardedar]

20 references for lithium battery recycling.
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About a hundred companies worldwide recycle lithium-ion batteries or will so soon. These include battery-making giants like China's Gangfeng Lithium, Elon Musk's Tesla, and numerous startups flush with fresh investor funding.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2 ... 02489.html

Examples:
1) "Georgia lands $43M battery recycling plant project shortly after Rivian commitment"
https://www.teslarati.com/georgia-lands ... rs-rivian/?

2) "FORD, REDWOOD MATERIALS TEAMING UP ON CLOSED-LOOP BATTERY RECYCLING, U.S. SUPPLY CHAIN"
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedi ... cling.html

3) "Panasonic Will Begin Using Recycled Battery Components From Redwood Materials This Year" -
https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/04/panas ... tion-tesla

4) "Toyota to recycle hybrid and EV batteries for renewable energy"
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automo ... energy-use

5) "General Motors Launches Dedicated Battery Recycling Site"
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2021/08/ge ... ling-site/

6) "EV battery: China powers Asia in race to ramp up recycling capacity as industry tests new method to overcome pollution problems"
https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3 ... stry-tests

7) "Northvolt claims first EV battery cell with 100% recycled nickel, manganese, cobalt"
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... ese-cobalt

8] "5 innovators making the electric vehicle battery more sustainable"
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/ ... ar-economy

9) "JB Straubel’s Redwood Materials is expanding into the battery materials business"
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/14/jb-st ... -business/

10) "New Study Shows Recycled Lithium Batteries As Good As Newly Mined Lithium Batteries"
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/20/ne ... -batteries

11) "Li-Cycle boosts capacity for New York EV battery recycling plant"
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodi ... 021-12-14/

12) "Veolia announces its first EV battery recycling plant in UK"
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/0 ... eolia.html

13) "Stelco to Enter the Rapidly Growing Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling Market Through Agreements with Technology-Leader Primobius
https://www.yahoo.com/now/stelco-enter- ... 00619.html

14) "Lucid Plans Second Life For Recycled EV Batteries In Energy Storage"
https://www.torquenews.com/15975/lucid- ... -storage-0

15) "VW Creates New Company for EV Battery Production - Wolfsburg will build six gigafactories in Europe to manage all aspects of EV batteries, from raw materials to recycling."
https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-car ... gafactory/

16) "Nissan to build EV battery recycling facilities in Europe and US in five years"
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20211227PD211.html

17) "MG Motor India successfully recycles its first electric vehicle battery"
https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/ne ... 09113.html

18) “Li-Cycle is constructing a US $175 million plant in Rochester, N.Y., on the grounds of what used to be the Eastman Kodak complex. When completed, it will be the largest lithium-ion battery-recycling plant in North America.
The plant will have an eventual capacity of 25 metric kilotons of input material, recovering 95 percent or more of the cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other valuable elements through the company’s zero-wastewater, zero-emissions process.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batter ... and-europe?

19) Southeast Asia's 1st battery recycling facility opens in Singapore, can recycle up to 14 tonnes of lithium batteries a day
“TES B is described as a "multi-million-dollar, state-of-art facility", and will recycle lithium batteries to recover precious metals like nickel, lithium and cobalt.
The facility will be able to recycle up to 14 tonnes a day, or the equivalent of 280,000 lithium-ion smartphone batteries, and can recycle up to 5,000 tonnes annually.
Its technology is said to have over 90 per cent recovery rate of precious metals, and yields a purity level of almost 99 per cent.
This means that the metals TES B recovers from the lithium batteries will be commercially ready for reuse and fresh battery production.”
https://mothership.sg/2021/03/singapore ... -facility/?

20) Recycling Canada
Where will Canada’s electric vehicle batteries go when they die?
“These behemoths of the battery world have an average lifespan of eight to 15 years, which means as the electric vehicle market continues to grow, B.C. faces an important opportunity to rethink the recycling sector.
It’s work that’s already underway across the continent.
Kunal Phalpher, chief strategy officer at Li-Cycle, a Toronto-based lithium-ion recycling company with four facilities operating and under construction across North America – including in Kingston, Ont. – said the more batteries become available, the better the opportunities become for recyclers.”
https://www.cheknews.ca/where-will-cana ... ie-949442/