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Originally Posted by GordonBlue
also add in the human rights perspective, too.
Isn't most of the worlds colbalt in the Republic of Congo, and China has 80% of graphite?
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1) Most current EV batteries no longer use cobalt as chemistries have changed, and the amount used is decreasing fast. Cobalt is also used in oil refining and other industrial processes
2) Most EV companies actively buy cobalt that is from ethical sources and investigate their supply chains. Other industries including oil refining are not
3) Oil and Gas industries in many countries are using slave labor and child labour as well. This is an issue in all mineral extraction industries.
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besides, I thought reports from the ICCT found EV manufacturing requires more energy and produces more emissions than manufacturing a conventional car, because of the metal extraction processes required for batteries.
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Yes, but even in the dirtiest grids the CO2 emissions become lower very quickly after a few thousand miles.
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-...s-powered-cars
[Quote]don't forget the smelting process of recycling lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride batteries itself recovers only between 40 and 50 per cent of battery materials and itself produces greenhouse gases.[quote/]
Vehicles don't used nickel-metal hydride batteries. As for ev batteries, the largest battery recycler gets 95+% back
https://eepower.com/news/redwood-mat...ning%20process.
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I could probably google for a while to educate myself, but I have a feeling you're overstating how little of an impact EV production has, especially the batteries.
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There's certainly an impact on mineral extraction, but there's a certain blindness to the extent of o&g impact. Land use for oil and gas is huge. The amount of "stuff" we mine for the fuels we burn is enormous and the mineral extraction for batteries will be much smaller. As for getting water disruption and chemical pollution, it's again ignored that oil and gas as well as coal do the same thing. Suggesting that Lithium mining is more harmful than oil for example misses tons of context with regards to what type and where, as well as emerging Lithium supply and extraction technology.